How I Got Stung

When I brought my first batch of honey bees home–the buzzing box headed for my backyard on a warm night in May–I was skeptical that my new hobby made any sense. Would my bees starve? Would they get sick? Would they annoy my neighbors?

Luckily, and by this point, I had been working part time for a bee removal company for a couple months, so I was somewhat seasoned by the job. And upon joining a local beekeepers club, I discovered both bees and urban beekeepers were multiplying in Prescott and the quad-city area. I also learned bees in a small backyard, such as mine, amongst the houses, schools and churches, have just as good a chance as anywhere else to thrive. Neighborhood trees, my giant Pyracantha bush, the neighbor's Russian Sage and any overgrown yards provide enough nectar and pollen–not to just sustain my bees throughout this summer season–but to score me some of their surplus honey!

My closest neighbors hardly noticed how busy the hive situated only 60 feet from their house became, even after I added a honey super (where the bees but the honey as opposed to eggs). In fact, they welcomed my bees when I first told them about it. They were only reminded again of my hive with a gift of bee goodness (honey) I gave them across the fence on Tuesday.

Jumping back to my bee removal job, I get asked a lot: “How did I decide to do this type of work?” Truth be told, there was no “Eureka!” moment, but I believe the Universe must have been dropping seeds here and there, starting with a home exchange I did in Sweden last fall 2014. My friends there were beekeepers, foodies and artists, and owned an art gallery called Honey Gallery in Bromma, Stockholms Lan. The apartment I lived in was next to allotment gardens, which I strolled through most days to appreciate the precious undiscovered glory that is life: birds, bees, moths, butterflies, flowers, apple trees, wild deer and the people that nurtured it.

Another invisible seed was dropped early 2015 while visiting the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension office armed with a couple gardening questions. They gave me a local beekeepers and master gardener's business card and said to call them. So I called Cliff, and he and his wife, Nancy, invited me to their property in Prescott Valley for a show-n-tell. I cannot remember now how the conversation went, but Cliff and I got into bee suits and headed out to the yard where all the hive boxes where buzzing and see how comfortable I was handling frames full of bees, honeycomb and honey. I was comfortable, and so I had to know more...

Things started to really change when I found myself casually interviewing for a job with Cliff's company, Last Shadow Apiary, in his kitchen that I had no plans for. But life as it so happens, has a funny way of sometimes bringing the right path to you even if you are too oblivious to head down it on your own. After apprenticing on four bee removal calls end of February/March, it was in April that I signed a contract with Cliff and started getting calls to remove and relocate bee swarms and hives from water boxes on my own. I travel all around Prescott, and the quad-city area, performing this noble service. I have my own bee suit and all the necessary equipment needed to capture/remove the bees kept in the back of my car. I can feel the spirits of generations of bees emanating a loud buzz as I drive down the road and turn them over to Cliff's. He keeps as many batches of bees as possible and puts them into vertical stacking hive boxes in his bee yard and then re-queens them so they are less aggressive (long story short).

I had never understood just how interesting bees were, but through Cliff's generosity and sharing his life-long knowledge of bees that I learned the ins and outs of keeping a bee hive, honey bee anatomy, procuring a new queen and how to handle her, and the most exciting part to me at this stage: harvesting the honey. What I revel in most now is located under a native Juniper tree in dappled light in my own backyard: the opportunity I have took for myself to have my own hive of honey bees for real! I wanted more than just an occasional purchase of agave nectar I was using for my various baking projects; I deeply desired the real deal with all it's fantastic nutrients from live cultures: the pollen, bee bread, honey in the wax, and the raw honey itself. Luckily, it has all been successful, as I continue to feel at ease working outdoors, being connected to the natural world in this special way and having a real sense of home in Prescott. Bees are such magical creatures that they do so much for us and ask for so little in return.

Looking ahead at 2016, I might expand my home apiary to 2 hives and maybe start to offer hive setup and management for other people too: restaurants, animal sanctuaries, urban farms, ranches and even a bee yard on the Prescott-Yavapai Indian reservation—why not? While putting a “maybe” and an “I might” in front of this last sentence, I find myself evolving as I go along trying to decide what works best in the context of my lifestyle and for the bees. It is also my hope that after you've read this (and maybe other parts of my blog) that you'll grow confident in your own wild and crazy plans like I did! Love, Sharon

Learning Curve

The ritual of driving a good distance, parking my car at an unmarked fence road, and getting out my mountain bike for the reminder of the journey has gradually become second nature, a routine I've memorized as if for a singing recital. I eagerly set out to find the natural horses: none of them shod, no barn, no cross-tying or heavy tack to deal with.

Once immersed into the herd, I choose a horse, or they approach me for some attention, and brush him/her to remove all the dried mud for their mane, body and hand-pick the tail a little. I pick up their hooves (if willing) to look for anything stuck in them that can be cleaned out. This allows me to see how willing the horse is to accept my touch and be in their space. I next allow the horse to check out the rope halter with his/her nose that I'm about to put on. I stand on the left and put the halter on and gently swing the end to be tied around and make a natural horsemanship knot. I know how to check for correct fit and adjust things where needed. I have added another 8 foot rope to the lead rope so I tie this back to the halter to use as the reins. I am riding bareback and lead the horse to a rock for that extra 4-5 inch boost up that I need to get on. Once on and balanced, I feel like a teenager who just stole the keys to her parents' car and ready to leave the driveway when no one is watching (and really, not another person is watching)! It's exciting, but I am not ready for the open pasture and so ride in circles, weaving in and out of the herd, lovingly touching and stroking other horses within my reach. Sometimes I do yoga poses on the horse's back, such as tree, locust, warrior 1, twist, bridge, etc. and sometimes I unpack the suitcase of my soul. I enjoy this time; this is everything.

These are "skills" I did not initially possess, and it still amazes me because of how much sense they make now. My friend once said, "You will learn by doing." And he is right; the more I do it, the less I need to think about it. Love, Sharon

How's the ranch life?

This is the question I’ve been getting a lot lately. I’m not totally sure how to answer that question because I haven’t solidly wrapped my head around the fact that I’M WORKING AT A RANCH (and this has been a dream of mine since the urge to be with horses took hold in January). This is mostly my fault because I think my little stressed self had a hard time believing that someone would actually hire me. My life has not been the easiest for a lot of years so I just didn’t spend much time thinking about what life would be like after I started this job, just in case something happened to curtail it.

When I'm in a stall or paddock, I think about how much I’ve fought the waves of change. How I haven’t been as authentic as a could have been, and how I’ve been so timid with expressing who I am. I’m not very proud of this last year of my life, I feel like in many ways I’ve failed. There have been a few bright and shining moments where my head finally surfaced above the clouds and I actually got to SEE what I have and what I’m living, but many, many of them have been marked by fear.

So here’s what I’m learning now: the lesson that I have to learn over and over and over again. Surrender. I will never be able to control every aspect of my life. I may never know what the next six steps are. I may never know what’s next. But I am choosing to believe that whatever’s next, it will be OK. I have 50 years to tell me that whatever comes, I will BE OK. In the next month I will likely be sleeping out in the wildness with a herd of beloved horses or traveling to another country. I don’t know which pasture and if I for sure will be moving the herd, but I’m choosing to believe that whatever it is, that’s the place I'm suppose to be in. I’m choosing to remember that my life has always been orchestrated in ways more beautiful than I could ever have planned myself. I’m choosing to stop fighting the waves.

So anyway, how’s the ranch life? Right now I’m ENVELOPED IN THIS AWESOME ATMOSPHERE. I think it’s good. I keep looking at each horse I feed or water, across the stall, or across the paddock and I feel so incredibly thankful. I get to spend the rest of my life doing something like this. Most horses are incredibly patient with me and I think back to what I wished for, 4 years ago, when I was taking all of those blind steps forward, not knowing where I was going. I think back to those times when the hope of what could be in the future was all that got me through. And I realize that those things I hoped for, those things that I wanted deep in my bones, THOSE are the things I got. It’s like someone knew me and made it all happen. Love, Sharon

Life is such a Thin Ribbon

It was a soft fall evening when I arrived at West Clear Water Creek. The air was sweet with fragrance and the sun was still high enough to warm the back of my legs and bike. Sycamore leaves fell and drifted randomly as the flickers called out their heckled laughter and "swam" from tree to tree. All of life seemed touched by an energy which charged everything, including me.

I had a lot of time to think while I biked along a worn path, and most of my thoughts centered around my being too strong and independent for a certain someone. I could hear his voice still in my head, but I began to replace his words with a new kind of language, a kiss which didn't have anything to do with the cellular movement of these thoughts, but of someone else's. It was kinda weird. I felt a rage and so I tossed my bike down on the sand and released my energy in doing so. With this new language, a remembrance of things past flooded over me and I floated off to another time and another place. I discovered absolute freedom thinking myself out of my current existence and this shook me from my loneliness.

We over-analyze it and forget to reflect on love and the sacredness of life. Even when it's as thin as a ribbon, so fragile, but so easily transformed. I thought life is sacred even:
--in the middle of nowhere
--in lands that are ravaged
--in a homeless shelter
--in line at the bank (you're overdrawn at)
--in the darkness of our souls
--when you have one stupid cover pulled over your head.

And now at the level of my bike, the unforgiving pokes of the stones, withered leaves and decaying wood bits, I ironically guard the new fruit of a kiss, a kiss which is unfelt. I guard it so wrongly, the new love which needs no explanation. And when the time is right, I will bike out across the flattened creek path and through some sandy areas and burst open to feel that kiss and let kisses come in that are of love and beauty. They can be from this time, that time, or any other time; it's all the same.

Hope you have a sweet, thought-provoking Fall.. xo, Sharon Marzonie

Camping over Christmas

This past few days were magical in the most lovely and simple way. There wasn't anything fancy and there was less (monetarily) but in a good kind of less-is-more spirit. I think anyone can see from the looks of the pics, that we needed so very little to bring us to great joy and fulfillment. Keeping things simple and personal, we recreated the familiar experience we so love of camping into a sweet and special Christmas.

These pics were taken in and around the Rawhide Mountains in Arizona.

Our first real winter weather is predicted to blow into town tomorrow, so I need to stock up with more simple items of merriment before we're bombarded with snow. Happy New Year! ~Sharon Marzonie