harvest: the product of an effort, an action

yesterday morning i was out doing some crazy, cool things. crazy, cool things that got me thinking about this word harvest. a word that seems to get thrown around, said casually, nonchalantly, without intention behind it.

my best friend and i woke up with the sun and headed out to one of the yards of Bare Honey.
Dustin is a man who understands harvest, who understands the relationship we have with this earth, who honors knowing where his food comes from and who creates.

we put on the bee suits. we waited for the sun to come out. we watched the bees start to wake up. we used cedar to smoke out the bees. we sprayed almond extract. we used a leaf blower to 'gently' push the bees out of the hives. we stacked the boxes in the trailer. we got hot. we were amazed as we saw the honey dripping down the frames, with the sun hitting it just so that it sparked these moments. we blew out our last hive. we walked away from the hives back in the parking lot. we stripped out of our suits, out of our boots. we sat for a moment blown away by what we just did. we walked back to the building where dustin plugged the centrifuge in. we watched as dustin went into a trailer full of frames, full of still buzzing bees with no bee suit on, totally vulnerable. and then a beekeeper with his product, with his harvest, reached his hand full of honeycomb dripping with honey outside the trailer and into our hands.

and here we were, sitting in the sun, hands dripping with honey straight from the hive. raw. warm from the sun. unlike anything. because now, there was meaning, there was intention, there was action behind this word. there was a lot wrapped up into that harvest.

harvest. you know, it kind of makes you think. it can stir things up. like, there are so many things that we can harvest...so many things we can put our efforts, our actions behind. and summer has this dreamy, beautiful season that is just asking for us to get outside, breathe in that summer air and start harvesting.

and then it just makes you fall in love with whatever you are harvesting. creating text messages that read like this conversation:

p.s. i have been dreaming about honey all day | golden liquid of the gods | hoooooonnnneeeeyyyyyyy oooooo hoooonnneeeeyyyyyy