A young Silicon Valley start-up
Wednesday August 26th 2009, 9:08 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

I was finishing up knitting the purple baby alpaca this afternoon when the doorbell rang.  I wonder?…

There were two absolutely adorable little blond boys, ages 4 and 6, a little shy as they looked up at the stranger in the strange house, a get-well note in their hands and with their smiling grandmother, who had driven them, standing behind.

A moment of confusion on my part and then I got it.

A little before my surgery, the local paper had run a story on their family: the dad with the Silicon Valley job and the small in-town yard but a little bit of the Woodstock “got to get back to the land, and set my soul free” in him, and so, he had set up a small beekeeping operation with his little boys.

Who get to deliver the goods. But they’ll only go as far as a four-year-old’s attention span.  We’re on the far end of town (and there’s only so much honey for their subscribers); we just barely squeaked in.

Delivery times are, as I understand it, whenever there is honey to share; I told the dad in an email when I signed up that I was going to be heading into surgery and if nobody was home, would it be okay to just drop it off at the door? He said he would send a honeybee to buzz my window hello at Stanford for me.  I was charmed.

But I got to see the boys instead.  It took me a moment to register that oh, right, as I opened the door, not seeing their jar of honey quite at first.  Lost in the cuteness.

And I have to tell you, that is the best-tasting honey I have had in years. Note that the jar isn’t quite full–it was earlier… (Yes, Mom.  You used to catch me dipping a spoon in the honey back in the days when I, too, was little.  Haven’t changed a bit.)


19 Comments so far
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What a terrific story!
I read it aloud to Oscar, and we both wished we were near enough to subscribe. :-}

Comment by Diana Troldahl 08.26.09 @ 9:38 pm

I get to add you to my ‘made me smile’ list for today.

Comment by Ruth 08.26.09 @ 9:50 pm

Isn’t it nice how honey from different places tastes different?

Comment by Laura 08.26.09 @ 11:02 pm

Did the bee get lost in traffic and forget to tell you? I think it was lovely the children get to deliver the honey and do something new and exciting but with an eagle eye grandmother there “just in case.”

Comment by afton 08.27.09 @ 5:36 am

That’s beautiful – both the honey and the story!

Comment by Channon 08.27.09 @ 6:45 am

Yum!

Comment by sherry in idaho 08.27.09 @ 6:47 am

I’ve often thought I was a honeybee in a past life. They have something for all the senses – the taste and smell of honey, the smell and feel of beeswax, their busy hum, and they are cute little critters too! I followed the link – great photos.

Comment by Julie 08.27.09 @ 7:45 am

this story reminds me of my childhood — there was a man in the neighborhood my grandparents lived in that kept bees — I remember Mr. Graves coming down the alley to my grandmother’s back door and giving her a container that looked like a silver coffee can full of honey and part of the comb — I loved getting a spoon and scooping out of the container some of the honey and the comb — mmmmmmm, sweet summer memory!

Comment by Bev 08.27.09 @ 7:54 am

Awww, so “sweet”.

Comment by Marlene 08.27.09 @ 8:04 am

Marlene beat me to my comment! So, just ditto 🙂

Comment by Michelle 08.27.09 @ 8:09 am

Local honey is the absolute best, I don’t care where those bees have been collecting their pollen. I hope you enjoy and think you should dip that spoon in once for me ;->

Comment by Leslie 08.27.09 @ 8:09 am

You don’t have to be a former hippie to keep bees. My father-in-law has been a bee keeper for six or seven decades, and he thinks “woodstock” is the pile out in the shed to last you the winter. Ross always reminds us that:

A bee’s front end is good and kind
But never trust a bee’s behind.
A bee can sting if it can sit,
So always stay in front of it.

Comment by LauraN 08.27.09 @ 8:37 am

That’s a honey of a story! And I love LauraN’s couplet about the bees.

Other humor:

MURPHY’S LESSER KNOWN DICTUMS

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 

He who laughs last, thinks slowest. 

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. 

Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t. 

Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. 

The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong. 

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog. 

The things that come to those who wait will be the things left by those who got there first. 

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer. 

Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries. 

The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room. 

Comment by Don Meyer 08.27.09 @ 8:54 am

That is such an awesome surprise. Such a great story for the boys as well.

Comment by Alicia 08.27.09 @ 10:56 am

perhaps the honey wants to live in that lovely ceramic container you displayed a couple of posts back.

Not only would the honey be happy (ouch) but no one would notice the steadily dropping level.

Comment by Holly 08.27.09 @ 11:50 am

how terribly sweet, no pun intended, I hate answering the door but for 2 charmers like that I’d camp out waiting for them!

Comment by grace 08.27.09 @ 1:21 pm

Beautiful story!

Comment by TripletMom 08.27.09 @ 8:38 pm

both of my grandfathers were beekeepers!
As a child I did not realize how important bees are!

Comment by susan 08.28.09 @ 9:37 am

Iused to eat my mom’s peach jam with a spoon.

Comment by Carol 08.29.09 @ 9:39 pm



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