It’s actually not simply because it’s hot, sweaty work tracking back and forth across a quarter acre in an Eastern North Carolina summer.  It’s the painfully slow pace I keep to avoid running over the white tufts of clover at a breakneck speed.  You see, our lawn is about 80% clover, and in the middle of the day when I normally work up the ambition to mow, the honeybees are already hard at work—right in my path.  So even though we have a self-propelled push mower, I only use the propulsion mechanism about half the time.  The other half is spent craning over the handlebars trying to see if a honeybee has successfully buzzed out of my noisy path of annihilation.  Our remaining honeybees are far too precious to simply run over.  And besides… It’s where mead comes from. 

That’s right, mead. Locally made blackberry honey wine. DEAR. GOD. With a 12.6% alchohol volume, I’m excited to see my inner Viking.

…In my backyard. The Southeast has gotten immense amounts of rain recently. As such, I keep a printed copy of Vegvesir wedged in the mirror above my head when I’m driving now. You never know when visibility will suddenly drop to “I would pull into the next driveway I see but I can’t see any.”