Good News!
This day came Bubba bearing a paper writing. More correctly, papers plural, said papers being hundred dollar bills in an amount sufficient to repay the loan, interest, and closing costs I incurred in borrowing the $3000 for him. YES!
It seems Bubba had some “other honey” that he had delivered to a different buyer, and this buyer paid him off this morning.
As a reward for “being neighborly”, Bubba gave me a gallon of honey. This was special Kudzu honey, which according to Bubba is extra nice. Actually, it’s as black as molasses. Who would place bee-hives in a Kudzu patch? For the uninitiate, Kudzu flowers are purple, and they smell “purple”, if you can follow that. While the honey from such flowers is very dark, it also tastes purple. UGH! Maybe I can think of a way to use it on trick-or-treat night.
Update on the mail order bride:
According to Bubba, it’s all Good To Go. He’s supposed to leave for Russia the last week in October for his get acquainted trip. If all goes well (and how could it not?) he’ll stay there for two weeks, come back home for a time to make sure about this, then go back sometime in late December or early January to get married and bring the Blushing Bride[sup]TM[/sup] back home.
Bubba’s already got big plans for her. Since she’s arriving in the middle of winter there won’t be much to do in the apiary. Bubba’s busy right now overhauling his sluice-boat, which has been moldering under a pine tree for several years now.
See, it’s possible to pan gold out of the river and streams hereabouts. If a person works hard and finds a good spot, a full eight-hour day’s work may yield as much as $10 worth of gold. Not very rewarding.
However, Bubba, being possessed of the entrepreneurial spirit and more to the point, unwilling to work for others, ordered the makings for a floating sluice boat a few years back. The apparatus has a suction hose that pumps sand and gravel to the top and separates the gold down a sluice. Since it takes two people to work the thing efficiently, and Bubba’s source of free labor played out as soon as the novelty wore off, Bubba parked the boat as soon as he’d dredged up enough gold to pay for it. Now, however, he’ll have some assistance! Bubba intends for 'Lissa (his pronunciation), to spend her first two or three months in the States standing knee-deep in near freezing water working the suction hose while he does the “technical stuff”, high and dry on the boat.
This will be interesting to watch. I’ll provide a full report if or when the Blushing Bride arrives.