Diary of My Country Life-August 6th, 2025

The original source of this blog: https://www.lotusandmichael.com/blogs/diary-of-my-country-life

08/06/2025 Wednesday 68-81F Cloudy

From our neighborhood’s latest newsletter, by chance we read that a neighbor is selling homemade honey.

We met that neighbor once—last Summer in a garden party, we sat at the same table sharing   information about critters and plants in our neighborhood. The wife told us about the persimmon trees, from which we picked some fruit last November and made dried persimmons.

So when we read that they had honey for sale, we decided to buy three bottles to try.

I put on my straw hat and went out. 

It took me less than two minutes to drive to their house. When I just parked my car, the husband Marc already saw me and opened the screen door of their porch. The honey had a beautiful, clean golden color. Marc told me that their spring honey usually had a lighter color than the autumn one, and his bee boxes were right in his backyard.

Seeing me very interested, he offered to take me to his backyard, where I did see seven or eight boxes with bees buzzing around.

“Which flower is the honey made from?” I asked.

“Every type grown in this neighborhood.” Marc said.

“So it must include my flowers as well. Perhaps right now some of your bee crew is collecting nectar in my yard.”

“Very likely.”

“Do the bees work twenty-four seven?”

“Yes, except in winter between October to January. During that period, they will stay inside the box.”

“Don’t they feel cold?”

“They stay in the ball inside the box which can keep them warm. By the way, very soon we will have honeycomb. Do you like honeycomb which you can eat just like that?” Mark put his hands close to his mouth pretending that he was holding something eating.

“Yes I love it! Both my husband and me are foodies. I like inventing dishes with flowers, perhaps with honeycomb too.”

“I am sure you will. I will let you know once it’s ready.”

That’s the conversation I had with Marc. Pity that I forgot to take photos of his bee boxes. 

Though the temperature is still hot, I can see a touch of autumn from the trees and plants—their leaves start to show a hue of yellow, just like wind adds a little yellow paint onto the canvas, then blends that color skillfully into the background—you can’t see it anymore, but in fact it’s everywhere. 

Also, though the vegetables are still growing, their paces slow down. Last year my tomato plants grew over the fence, while this year they are much smaller—perhaps because deer munched them twice, or perhaps because the soil needs more fertility after planting tomatoes in the same area for two years (last winter I buried two sardines in the soil as well as some cow manure and fallen leaves. I think they weren’t enough).

Yesterday we grilled chicken wings and corn outdoors and dined under the crape myrtle. It was breezy, warm, yet there were no mosquitoes. Some petals fell from the crape myrtle onto our plates, the dishes, very romantic and beautiful. Summer is good, fall is also nice. With reduced harshness of the sun, we can enjoy more time in the garden. The night is gradually becoming longer and cooler; sometimes the lowest temperature drops to below sixty degrees. As usual, plants are smart to sense the subtle changes of the season: My onions’ top has flopped over, a sign for harvest; baby arugulas shoot through the soil from the seeds dropped this spring; taro and ginger plants are in a hurry to grow, scheduling to mature their roots before winter…

A groundhog is eating clovers’ little white flowers on the lawn. From the size, I could tell that it’s the same one which snuck into my sunroom days ago. That evening when I entered the sunroom, a shadow instantly rushed to the door from somewhere and started to scratch at the door, which startled me, as much as I startled it. Perhaps it figured that it couldn’t get out, so it turned on its heels and ran underneath a little cabinet. I held a stick in hand, bent down, finding it hiding at that spot still with its belly on the floor; but its eyes were wide open, as bright as two lit candles, avoiding looking at me straight.

I opened the door, used the stick to push it out. It came to the rocker, stopped. I stopped too. The air was like frozen; like two motionless gunmen both pointing their guns at each other, sensing, judging and deciding what their next move should be. This moment lasted at least one minute, until the groundhog perceived some sort of “letting go” atmosphere from me. It took the chance, scampered out all the way down to the back fence like a shooting arrow. 

This embarrassing encounter didn’t seem to bother it much—now it is leisurely eating the flowers, looking content and complacent, which can make anyone who interrupts its meal feel guilty. 

I am happy to see that they take my yard as their canteen (as long as they don’t eat my plants and don’t shit 😢). Sometimes if there was a cookie crumb on the porch after our morning coffee, a while later a crew of ants would show up. Strangely, even if many other ants were nearby doing nothing, only two or three ants managed to carry the crumb (which was bigger than the three of them combined) as if they were assigned to this project. One ant was dragging the crumb at the front, another one pushing from behind. If there was a third one, the third one would work like a scout: Sometimes it came ahead of its coworkers to check whether the path was clear or not; then it turned back, either helped the back one to push, or helped the front one to drag. When they fell into or must pass a ditch—the groove between the pavers—they three would work together to get it through. They were very collaborative so I had to convince myself that all the other passerby ants were merely from other groups; no bother nor robbery was already the best we could expect from them.