Barely Functioning

I'm barely functioning missing our Barney boy, but I need to make more pottery so I have to keep working. I push myself through my salty tears. Cherished Barney has been missing for almost a week. Out of town family situations and lack of responses have left me weary. Sad to say human interactions are more predictable than the unexpected loss of our treasured one.

I fired a bisque load, now a glaze load is sitting in the kiln ready to fire. I'm waiting for a break in thunderstorms, been raining every day. We contacted every neighbor within a mile or more, we went to the shelter and called animal control, no luck. The lady at the shelter knew what I meant when I said Barney was more like a dog than a cat. Every little shadow or noise makes me look around expecting to see our Barney boy.

Gary picked the harvest yesterday, three eggplant (two varieties) and one lemon cucumber. This year, amazingly, hundreds of wild honey bees are pollinating the lemon cucumbers. They dive deep into the flower to get the pollen. A small pleasure had me watching them marveling at the resilience of nature. In many other locations I also see wild honey bees, when years past I saw none.

Beekeeper honey this year is thin, very thin. I say to beekeepers let the bees have the honey, they need it. I'm not a beekeeper any longer but the winter was long and harsh, spring barely there, now summer wet with little pollen produced. Nectar is scarce. Don't take from the bees who've provided year after year so generously. Let them have their due. Today I'll be at the farmers market from 7a to 1p. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.