Perfect summer day in the country

A gorgeous late summer morning - the perfect day to get the supers of honey off Janine's five hives.  We've started working our bees collaboratively this year.  Solomon said, "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil, for if they fall, one will lift up his brother sister."  We're "old ladies" to be doing heavy bee work but we love the bees so we work together and find that having four eyes to look at things, two brains to figure out what to do in situations we encounter in the hive and two sets of muscles to lift really makes it doable for us.  This is the day of the year that requires the hardest work - taking off the full supers of honey.  A full super weighs about 80 pounds and we had a lot of supers to get off.  It's also better if we leave the bees IN the hive and not take them with us when we take the supers to the honey house - not a simple job!  A bee and his honey are not easily parted!  We removed well over 500 pounds of honey today and wrangled about a million bees in the process.  No injuries occurred although I'm sure we will have sore muscles tomorrow.  It was a joy to work with a dear friend, both of us awed at these beautiful, tiny creatures and harvest the fruits of their and our labor.  On a perfect summer day...in the country...

Late yesterday I went out to check the milkweed pods and was thrilled to find two monarch larvae on the plants.  I consider even two as a "successful breeding year", although I suspect there are quite a few more that we don't see or find.  It's good we let the milkweed grow undisturbed!

And there was also an adult monarch sipping nectar on the blue vervain in the prairie plants.

Here's the latest in Kenji's "hot harvest", a ghost pepper - one of the hottest!  Even it's form and surface seem to be warning you that there's fire within!

Late summer caprese salad with balsamic reduction by Anne.  Tomatoes and basil from the garden.  Cheese from the store.  Give us time...we may do that, too.

There's a cicada chorus outside, the sun is going down and the day is winding to its close.  What joys will tomorrow bring?  Thank you, Lord, for your gifts - for friends, for bees and butterflies, tomatoes and peppers, for sunshine and then rest at day's end.