Milestones
If you follow us on social media, you will already know that last week we harvested our first batch of honey from our bees. It was a milestone, one that I never really saw coming despite being a beekeeper for the last 3 years. Our hives had been repeatedly hit by back luck with late swarms and predators, so I had contented myself in enjoying the process of keeping bees, rather than focussing on any product we may get out of them. But as the light golden liquid poured out of that extractor, we all beamed with pride. Local, organic honey, from bees tended by us (I was going to say lovingly tended, but let's face it we have all sworn at them when hit with an errant sting).
One of my favourite things about this life we lead is the milestones we get to celebrate - they start in the form of firsts like our honey and then, hopefully, move into seasonal milestones that punctuate our year - lambing, kidding, calving, shearing, canning, foraging for mushrooms, apple pressing, harvesting the hazel nuts, harvesting honey. Each one of those were a first at one stage - things we had to figure out, read up on, fail at and try again and again. Our teachers go as far back to our parents and grandparents' lessons from our childhoods to good books to friends and neighbours to the endless resource that is YouTube.
Sometimes I wonder if any of these milestones will get old. If we won't all squeal with delight at the small bundles of new life in spring. If we will start to resent hauling baskets of veg into the kitchen from the garden. If watching golden honey drip into jars will become old hat. Maybe. But undoubtedly there will be new milestones along the way, and most likely some failures that will make the successes that much more of a joy.
We are prepping for new online courses (see below), so we filmed the wholed process. I have made a little video of extracting the honey, which you can watch below:
Yours from a honey-induced sugar rush,
Kat
