Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee...
Andy has recently ventured into bee-keeping. He bought a bee box, got a little advice and an already-thriving bee family from a neighbor and expert beekeeper, and set the box up on another neighbor's land. A couple months later, the bees seemed to be doing well, and it was time to add on the box they will hopefully use for honey storage. Pressed for time, Andy decided to do this task with less-than-ideal equipment: a pillowcase with a mesh window hurriedly sewn into it for a bee mask, no smoker (which helps to calm the bees down), and whatever clothes he happened to be wearing (instead of light-colored clothes, which supposedly anger them less). When he arrived and set to work, it quickly became obvious that the bees were feeling protective. They swarmed him within the first minute, barely giving him time to place the box before he started feeling them stinging through several layers of clothes and crawling up inside his mask (pillowcase). As soon as he could, he took off running for his motorcycle, hoping that getting away from the hive would end the attack. The presence of a couple bees in his mask (pillowcase) became unbearable, so he ripped it off as he mounted the motorcycle. That's when he realized that the swarm had followed him. As soon as the mask came off, they charged, attacking his face and head. He hit the throttle on the motorcycle, holding on with one hand while desperately swatting away the mob with the other.
When he arrived home, I noticed he looked kind of...puffy. He walked in the house just shaking his head, then told the whole story. An hour or so later, he started complaining that his head still hurt in several places where they had stung him. I had him sit down so I could take a look. I gasped with my first glance. There among the stubble of his nearly-shaved head were half a dozen smashed bee rear ends, embedded with their stingers into his poor swollen scalp and neck. I pulled them out with tweezers, leaving a little bee butt collection on our kitchen table. The swelling didn't get much worse, although he did walk around for a week with one eye half shut. The happy ending came when he told the story to our neighbor and several other experienced bee-keepers. They laughed harder with each rookie mistake he revealed, and kindly advised him how to avoid another painful encounter.
The Princess and the Potato
Our most recent trip to Santa Cruz was begun about 12 hours earlier than expected when, the night before we planned to get on the bus, we caught wind of a truck about to pass through town hauling potatoes to the city. We had always wanted to experience the ride on a potato truck to the city at least once, so we decided to hop on. The advantage of making the trip this way is that you don't have to spend the entire day on a bus, which leaves at 9 a.m. and arrives at 6 p.m. - a whole day lost. Instead, you board the potato truck late in the evening, and then by the next morning you arrive at your destination. But first let me describe what I mean by "ride on a potato truck."
The kind of truck used to haul potatoes here is not very common in the United States. I don't have a picture of an actual Moro Moro potato truck, but imagine something like this:
In this particular case, you will need to imagine it a little more run-down and generally non-confidence-inspiring, and that the slatted boards making up the side walls of the bed (which tend to bow out with time) are supported by rubber straps made of used tires. Imagine climbing up the back (there are no stairs, mind you, so you have to make the first step up onto the bumper-like platform in one bound), and dropping down under the tarp into darkness. You feel around beneath you and realize you are crouching on top of potatoes: enormous blue bags full of them. The bags are tossed in willy nilly, so that you have to crawl around in the dusty darkness while the truck sways back and forth, looking for a place where the sacks fell in a way that makes a more-or-less flat surface that you can stretch out on.In our case, we found acceptable positions with the help of an elderly woman who was also making the trip. She gave helpful advice like, "put that box over there," and, "make sure your neck's not too bent. That hurts." We found ourselves with two traveling companions: the woman, and an older man. He was on his way to visit his wife, and she was going to spend time with her daughter. Since it was nearly pitch dark, we had to ask eachother about 10 times who we were. Once we established that, the man perked up and said, "Now we're going to have a good chat!" And then he and the woman spoke nonstop for 10 minutes about why you can't have a good chat really between only two people, but as soon as there are three or four, well, then you can. This specific good chat covered the usual topics: rain, mud, siblings, potatoes, peaches, city-versus-campo living (the city life is undesirable, of course), bus-versus-potato truck travel, etc. At one point, I retold half-jokingly that Andy and I had been concerned that the tarp over the truck wouldn't allow for much air flow inside. The woman responded with some very helpful information: "Well, no, you see, the air gets in through the open spaces and makes kind of a wind in here, so you don't have to worry about that." (I often find people telling me things that are completely obvious, which makes me wonder if I walk around looking lost and out of place most of the time.)
After the good chat died down, we settled into our places. Sleeping on a bag of potatoes is pretty comfortable at first. Then after half an hour or so, that one tiny tuber that sticks out farther than the rest starts to feel like a tiny fist punching you in the ribs or thigh, and you have to squirm around for a while to find an acceptable new position. At first, too, the swaying of the truck lulled me into sleepiness, but then I started picturing the cliffs and crumbly roads and the possible sleepiness of the driver, and every time I felt the truck breaking or swerving slightly, my heart skipped a beat. Heart skipping is not conducive to sleeping any more than being punched by tiny potatoes. Then, of course, the inevitable need for a bathroom crept up. On the bus, bathroom availability is predictable: there will be one stop in the middle of the trip where there is time to go to the bathroom; that's it. In the back of the potato truck, however, not only did I not have any idea what the driver's plans were, but he was in such a hurry that he never stopped for more than two minutes at a time (long enough for him and his male helpers to jump out of the cab, do their business, and jump back in). By the time I would realize we were stopped, crawl over the potatoes and sleeping old man to the back of the truck, heave myself over the back wall, and identify some tiny bush on the side of the road behind which I could do my thing, the driver's helper would be waving me back into the truck, telling me that the driver was running late and in a big hurry. This happened three times before I resigned myself to the fact that I would just be holding it for the entirety of the 10-hour trip. Have you ever had to go in the middle of the night, but you were feeling lazy and thinking to yourself, "I can just hold it 'til morning, right?" It never works. The longer you lay there trying to convince yourself of this, the more awake you become with the fear that you really will fall asleep and possibly not hold it until morning. You know? I hardly slept at all. Andy, meanwhile, could not be bothered with my complaints about tiny potatoes, imaginary near-collisions, or bathroom issues, because he was out cold almost the entire trip. The next day I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief when our boss told us that, for safety reasons, she prefers we just stick to bus travel.
