Gardening – Page 3 – Science teacher

January 26, 2020January 8, 2022

Be God, Bee God

If God is only in a few of us, God is in none of us.
If God is in some of us, God is in all of us.

Honey bee on our rosemary plant in late January 2020.

I saw a couple of honey bees in the rosemary yesterday. I heard them before I saw them.

It had rained hard just an hour earlier, and the rosemary flowers were soaked, making it difficult for the bees to gather much nectar. One looked particularly frustrated.

Their bee bodies were sleek, not covered with the pollen found on them in the summer. Not much blooming in January–rosemary, a few dandelions, not much else.

Still, the bees were out, and I was out, and I was curious about them, and one was (mildly) curious about me until she realized I was not a threat. Then she went back to work.

If God is in some of us, God is in all of us.
And if God is in all of us, God is in the bees as well.

This is only sacrilegious if you anthropomorphize God. (It may be sacrilegious to anthropomorphize bees, too, but I do not know enough about religion, or God, or bees to say with much authority.)

If you go outside, even in January, you will be surprised.

The shells of clams I have raked, cooked, and eaten. December 2019

On the way home from school on Friday, I saw a woman about my age look a little hesitant as I passed her. I said hello and walked on, but got stopped by a couple of my former students, and we chatted about robots (an upcoming robot competition), music (one had a gig that night at a local fund raiser), and whatever else was going on in their lives at the moment. Kids lead a lot more interesting lives than many adults I know.

The woman watched me chat, then, figuring I was safe, asked me if I knew where the Church on the Green was. I pointed it out–it was right across he street–then we got to chatting. Strangers on the street lead a lot more interesting lives than we know unless we ask.

She was looking for a food pantry that had Alimentum, a special formula for babies that are allergic to milk. It’s hard to find Alimentum in food pantries, and even harder at stores if you lack cash. She had just gotten custody of her great grand-daughter, had an appointment for WIC in three weeks, but in the meantime she needed to find Alimentum.

I embarrassed her by offering what little cash I was carrying, but after some back and forth I convinced her take it. She made it clear to me that she was not homeless and was not looking for anything from me.

I knew as much. I know a little bit about Alimentum from my years as a pediatrician, and a lot more about how we care for children in this land, a lesson I learned well practicing medicine.

A rosemary in January will share nectar with another species, but if you lack cash or credit, your human baby may well go hungry until she is “in the system.”

Granny’s crucifix made of Irish bogwood, now mine. She saw Saints, I once did, too.

March 2, 2019January 8, 2022

Let it bee….

Bee on a dandelion….the cherry blossoms are still a month away

If you have never stuck your nose completely into a cherry blossom, a blossom that burst open only a few hours ago, you cannot know the intensity of joy possible by bees, or by us.

We cannot know what bees know, but if I had to choose between words and the inexplicable joy felt when I buried my face in a fresh patch of cherry blossoms, well, I’m throwing away my keyboard and running away with the bees.

After giving myself to the first cherry tree blossom of spring, I saw a young child, no more than 8, pick up her even younger sister, about 2–she carried her to the cherry tree, to sniff the flowers. She may have seen me do the same thing.

The father, smoking a cigarette, barked at her: “There may be bees in those flowers–get away!”

She slinked away, now fearful of bees and cherry blossoms. Just as well, I suppose–a child in love with flowers and bugs is going to have her heart broken when she earns what is expected of her later.

Crocus breaking through the frozen ground

Not all things are possible, but these things are:

You can eat bread, real bread, made from flour you ground with your own hands.
You can drink honey wine, made by the yeast you put in a carboy mixed with fruit and honey.
You can watch the tide fall, then rise again.
You can see Orion tonight if the sky is clear.
You can eat pesto made from basil grown in a classroom, fed by light from the sun and the breath of you and your students.
You can bury your face in early spring cherry blossoms.
You can rake clams, take their lives, and eat them, no matter what sins you have committed.

What do you tell an 8 year old child holding her very young sister whose just been told by her father that bees are to be feared?

Do you tell her of the honey bee waggle dance? That bees will find her tree, and tell other bees, and that they will all be so intoxicated with the smell of the cherry blossom that she will not be noticed?

Or do you let her Dad stand silently against the tree, puffing on his cigarette, tend to his own children, his own myths, his own ignorance?

Monarch on my finger, late autumn at Two Mile Beach

My Dad is dead. He loved bees.
My Mom is dead. She loved bees.
My sister is dead. She loved bees.
I will someday be dead. I love bees.

Maybe it’s the bees that are killing us. Maybe it’s not. But if it is, I’d still love the bees.

Spine of a dead and decaying horseshoe crab. My reminder.

Occasionally I will stumble upon an exhausted bee, dying on a flower. Too tired to move, but still alive enough to thrust her tongue into the nectar. I leave those bees well enough alone. Should I be gasping my last breaths with my nose buried in a blossom, I trust the bees will return the favor.

The last sound I heard my mother make was laughter–she died two days later, while I held her hand.

The last few hours of my Dad’s life, he laughed. I heard it, and I held his hand as he died.

I did not hold my sister’s hand–she was killed by an errant Christian missionary who left her broken on the edge of a Michigan highway–but I bet she laughed a few minutes before she died. I know she sang. She always sang. Always.

Like a bee humming she sang, sang, sang.

Mostly from an older post–but I needed it today.

February 25, 2019January 8, 2022

Winter dandelion

The edges of the petals have been cauterized by the recent frigid nights. There are no bees around. Even if the flower should go to seed, the ground is too hard to accept them.

And yet there it is, bright yellow, still living, still growing, still being.

Early in spring I will rip a leaf here and there, to nibble during the weeks when there is little to nibble, a week or two after the peas have been planted, months before we’ll see beans and tomatoes.

Its persistence seems to annoy most. Few folks forage, and no one makes dandelion wine anymore. Perhaps the dandelion’s reminder of who we once were, of what we once valued, is why its abundance angers us. I do not know.

A few weeks after flowering, the yellow gives way to a white soft globe, soft as baby hair, each tuft carrying a seed. Make a wish and blow the pods away.

The dandelion’s roots delve deep into the earth, snorting in water, sniffing out trace elements we have no idea we need (but we do), feasting on the feces left by an earthworm.

Some of the dandelions on our yard have been here over a decade, gathering sunlight, feeding the bees, feeding me.

I spent a wasted lifetime killing them.