Labor Day Weekend in the US, bees busy

This is the Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer in the US, where we celebrate the dignity of work by goofing off for a long weekend. Except for the bees who are as busy as ever, on the sedum now flowering in time for the holiday weekend.

This has been an eventful summer, to put it mildly. Or as my dear old mum in law, many years ago, after her city had been hit with record breaking winds, many buildings had their top storeys removed, roofs flying all over the old city, which had withstood storms for close on a hundred years, and we had been frantically trying to get news of her, finally wrote. Well, she says, we've had some quite nasty weather lately...

The huge journey of HP, who began to fail in June, now ended, then the earthquake, then the hurricane, have made this a summer of massive life experience.

But this weekend, hot summer sunshine, bees working, friends coming and going, is a good time to just loaf. Other people who have been in my position, settling an estate, disposing of all kinds of supplies and equipment, dealing with officialdom in all its shapes and sizes, running hither and yon with documents and letters and files, know what I mean when I say I long to be able to just stay home and sit on the sofa! and they too, give a hollow laugh at the kind friends who say, oh, do try to get out of the house! stay busy! like there's a choice? but they've never done it, and I think they imagine I'm sitting home alone feeling sad, and it worries them.

But this too shall pass, and I will be able to do stuff I want to as well as the stuff I just have to. Meanwhile imaginative friends who simply say, I'm coming to pick you up, choose a day and a place and we'll have lunch, are blessed. Now that's the kind of thing I do want to do! and play music, if I can fit it into the work schedule that comprises my daily life at the moment.

The bees are probably the same ones that make the honey I buy from the local farm, where they have their own hives. Always a good thought. My own plantings coming back at me in the form of honey.