Southern Hats and Wild Roses

Success. What is it? All people have their own opinions on what success is and what makes a person successful during their lifetime. My ideas regarding success have changed through the years. Changed dramatcally, in fact. Like most young people I see today, I used to feel that being "successful" involved lots of money and recognition. A fancy framed degree hanging on the wall, a fancy home and lots of expensive designer posessions. I achieved these things over time. At one time I brought home a good paycheck. Enough to pay my bills and then some. My home was not ritzy, but it was comfortable. But instead of thinking I had reached "success", I became one of millions of people today who feel they are never successful enough. More money, more job responsibility leading to more recognition...... On and on it goes in a never-ending cycle. But does it make us truly happy? Like the saying goes, we can't take it with us when we pass away. And I came to realize that the accomplishments that truly meant something to me were the simple ones. I achieved my accomplishments without the big degree. I did not learn to cook in a classroom...I learned from my grandmother and myself. That grandmother also taught me to garden and sew. I learned to can food from another grandmother, who also taught me to crochet. I also recently taught myself to knit which is something I am very proud of. As I look around now, I realize that my idea of success involves a productive garden, pretty flowerbeds and chickens who are happy enough to lay an egg for me every day. How my idea of success has changed over the years! And I have realized that it was my own grandchildren who started the change. When they started arriving, I realized that they were not interested in how Grammy paid some companies bills or handled their accounting books. Nor would they remember those things when I was gone. What they would remember is helping in the garden. Eating blackberries and raspberries straight from the vines in Grammy's yard. Learning to cook, can, sew, crochet and knit while watching and helping me do those things. Just like I learned from my grandmothers, who learned from their grandmothers. All down through history..... Those are the achievements and the success that truly matter in the end. And I do realize that some people (some of my own family members, in fact) look down on my accomplishments as not being "successful". They hold their own little pieces of paper as symbols of their success. And, with paper in hand, they look down on the accomplishments of myself and others like me. Do they even realize that by thinking these things are not important they are, in fact, looking down on their own ancestors? The very people who learned from their grandmothers and passed down those things that you now learn in classrooms. Where do they think all that knowledge they learn in the classroom actually started? It started with someone standing by their grandmother or grandfather...............

Summer Sweetness

There's something about summertime that brings out the sweetness in everything. Long hot days, cool (or not) nights spent listening to the sounds of a million insects. Watching a million fireflies flash through the trees and bushes.

One thing that summer also means is.......fresh honey. Not store bought honey but honest-to-goodness natural honey brought out of our own hives and lovingly extracted into jars of perfect, clear sweetness.

This is one of our hives. The heat has the bees "bearding" around the entrance. Bees gather in this way and fan their wings to cool the inside of the hive......