Bee Happy

On another visit to our favorite apple orchard a few years ago, I was enjoying a chat with Mrs. W. while browsing her charming antique store.  It's a small converted house, and she has furniture and treasures artfully tucked into every corner.  She  mentioned that their crop had been small that year because of a Spring frost, and that the frost had occurred two years in a row on exactly the same date.  I could tell she was concerned - - this was their livelihood, and I promised to pray for them.

When that date approached the following year, I began praying - determined that there wasn't going to be a crop-destroying frost.  Part of my prayer was that the harvest would be the BEST they'd ever had.

That Fall, on our annual pilgrimage to the orchards, I asked about the harvest.    "Oh, it was the BEST we've ever had.  No one else in the valley had a crop like ours."   I'm smiling.  "So, what do you think made the difference?", I asked.

"It was the bees.  We had thousands of bees."

Now isn't that just like God.



He that diligently seeks good, finds favor   Proverbs 11:27

 

Here's a little friend that sits on the breakfast room shelf.

He's a News Bee (:

 

near the vintage mustache cup that says "Be happy"

on a book about bees

 

bzzzz

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Opportunity

You can count the seeds in an apple,
but you can't count the apples in a seed."
Pastor Jim Partington, England




See other Words to Live By at Notes from a Cottage Industry

Antique Apples

September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn."
-   Robert Lowell

Well, it's officially Fall at our house.

Mr. D. has gone fishing.
And I'm enjoying apples.  

Edited for Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

                                                  So here's my version of "enjoying apples"

                                                 Vintage pottery with an apple theme

 This  is early 1900's Weller in the Baldwin Apple pattern.
It belonged to my Grandmother.

It gets moved around in the living room.  Right now it's back on the mantle.

Roseville pottery in Green Apple Blossom from the forties.
My  favorite pattern.

                                                              I love the twig handles

 

A Ewer and a small Cachepot

Pink Apple Blossom Teapot, Creamer and Sugar

 

I lost the lid to the sugar bowl the last time we moved.

I think I left it in the wrapping paper.  sigh.

And lastly I'll sneak in this hand-painted Cider Set

I keep it in a small china cupboard in the den

because it has a serious crack on the inside

 

I once thought of getting rid of it. 

  So glad I didn't.

I have a theory about the difference between a Cider Set

and a Lemonade Set.

I think it's the cups.

  Cider cups have handles, and lemonade cups don't. 

And of course I loved this one because

it had a bird on a branch.

 Chirp!

What's in Your Hand?

Every Fall we like to take a family outing to "apple country" that's about an hour's drive away.  We have our favorite orchard.  I'm hoping it's still open this year, because everything there is old.  It's owned by a couple in their eighties, that grow "antique" apples, and have a horse that's something like 36 years old - although I didn't see him last time.

Mrs. W sells antiques (at least she did); Mr. W gives out samples of the apples.  You can't just buy the apples from him, you have to sample the varieties -- all of them.  It's a rule.  If you time it right, you can buy cider made on the antique  apple press.  One year we got to make our own on the hand-cranked press, and saved it in the freezer for Thanksgiving.

Mr. W once told me the story of how he got started, and the old-timer from the neighboring orchard that had mentored him.  He said the old fellow loved his orchard and had worked it for a life-time.  One day the daughter came to visit. He wasn't in the house, so she went out to the orchard to look for him.  He was there, sitting on the ground leaning against one of his trees.  He had passed away with an apple branch in his hand.

That story has always been inspiring to me.  I hope to enter Heaven with my apple branch in my hand too  - having done exactly what I was created to do, not departing from my "life path".  I've been spending time with the Path Planner - just to be sure I'm in the right orchard producing the right fruit.

Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life. 

Proverbs 9:11 

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