The Unexpected

We have two new members of our extended family: Fluffy (aka Ameila) and Mr. Cat. These cats had been wandering around the property and since Shiva's passing last year we've been talking about adopting another cat... well, now these two have become a part of our lives. It turns out that Fluffy really belongs to our neighbors but they have a cat that gave birth to kittens and has pushed Ameila (their name for the cat) away from the feeding dish. Eats are pretty easy here, so she sleeps and eats on the porch. During our morning meditations on the deck, she often crawls onto our lap.

Mr. Cat is another story. Yesterday, for the first time, he let me pet him. Susan has yet to be given that privilege.  He is a feral cat that is slowly warming up to us. I decided to take his photo the other day and the flash went off... and so did he. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention to the fact that a hen turkey was nearby with her chicks. These hens are VERY territorial when it comes to protecting their chicks and their food. You can see the result- turkey chasing Mr. Cat. It all turned out fine and Mr. Cat is still here. But the unintended consequence of a photo....

The weather has turned very warm. It was in the mid-90's today. The only lilies that haven't finished their blooming are the red ones. The Magnolia is just now staring to blossom and most of the leafy vegetables have bolted. The artichokes are coming on and the tassles are starting to form on some of the corn.

Swarming

The other day we were outside and I heard the sound of bees. I don't know if you've ever been in a fruit orchard when all the trees are in bloom and there are thousands of bees humming away- well that is what this sounded like. Walking toward the sound, soon the air was filled with honey bees and they were swarming around one of the apple trees. It was a hopeful thought that they'd stay around and make a place on the property, but no, they headed out. I did call our neighbor who keeps bees and a local beekeeper. Neither were available to come by and capture the swarm. Found out today that it was our neighbors hive. Maybe next year we can put some bees out.

Watching the bees it brought to mind a few things- the first is the human mind. It seems that most people's consciousness more resembles a bee swarm than migrating geese. Our thoughts and emotions buzz around inside and it isn't always clear where it is going. It is more akin to Chaos Theory than Newtonian Physics. There is order to it, but it isn't clear what that order actual is and that an internal state from a previous moment has spun off and caused unconsidered repercussions. I think mind training (such as meditation) is essential to get "the bees into a hive where they create honey". Many of the problems in the world could be solved if more people trained their minds- especially if the focus were on the creation of more compassion and loving-kindness in the world. It has never made sense to me that we don't actively train young people's minds. We indoctrinate them, we socialize them, we train them to hit baseball's, we show them how to cook, but is a rare child who actual gets training on how to focus, to work with their emotions, and ways to channel their negative energy. It is common to tell them to "Just Say No!" or give them the moral code, but not the how-to. With this increased concern about test scores I don't think that we'll see this happening anytime soon.

The other thing that the swarming bees brought to mind was taking care of our environment and creating places that wild bees can live.  Some say that the domestic (United States) wild bee population has declined 50%. One of the things that we want to do here is to create habitat so things like bees can make a resurgence. My neighbor told me an interesting fact: the stingless honey bee that we get our honey from is not native to the U.S.- something I didn't know until yesterday. It came to our shores in the 1600's.

The last thing that came to mind about bees was that good intentions can turn out bad. In an attempt to keep the bees hanging around- I uncapped a hummingbird feeder and put it right in the middle of where the bees seemed to be focused. When I went back a little later- there were dozens of the bees dead in the liquid. Not a good idea. Good intention, but bad result. I'm sorry that ignorance killed them- but it will not happen again!

That's all for now.