By Gene Paleno
Most older folks I know don’t like change. They feel more comfortable if the car starts when they want it to, their shoes are where they put them the night before so they can find them and put them on quickly, and when they need something it is where they expected the item to be where they left it. That’s another reason many older folks like to live alone.
I’m different. I welcome change. Change is necessary to life. For a time I had a hand-printed sign on my office door that said, “WELCOME CHANGE.” The reason I am so adamant on the subject of accepting change is because when we stop changing, or when we are afraid to try new things, that is the moment when we start to ossify.
However, now that I have done my preaching on the subject for the day, I will say and I do say that change sometimes can rattle you some. It can be disturbing and give you an unpleasant jolt. That is what happened to me a day after Jim’s bees came to visit my back pasture this year.
Every year Jim brings his bee hives to my field after the hay is cut. The bees make honey and they have lots of water close by to drink when they want. This year the coming of the bees also gave me a few new boarders on my front porch that I had not expected. I thought I had only a single boarder; my friend Cleo, who is a, 2-year-old, nondescript gray cat. With the advent of a bee population near my house I found I had acquired two dozen new boarders that hang around on my front porch all day (when they’re not working pollinating my tomatoes and gathering honey) and drink up Cleo’s water.
I have had a second stray cat that hangs around on my front porch for several months. She came to say hello to Cleo so I fed her also. It was an arms length transaction since I did not need a second cat for a pet. This second cat, by her calico coloring, might have been a sister to Calico, the cat I had and that died, before I got Cleopatra.
The newest boarders I am talking about that have descended on my front porch are bees. When Jim put his hives in my pasture I thought my pond and Linda, my neighbor’s pond would give them all the water any bee could wish for. Two ponds weren’t enough for these fastidious critters. The bees liked Cleo’s water better.
I had no choice. I set out a large 2-by-3-by-4-feet deep plastic box of water in my garden for the bees. That’s when tragedy struck. Next day I found one of the bees in the water. It had fallen into the water and given up its tiny bee ghost. It couldn’t climb the walls of the plastic water box. I put a 2-foot plank in the water as a sort of floating island for the bees. That way if one fell into the drink he could swim to the plank and dry off enough to fly home.
Last time I looked there were 20 of the pipsqueaks scarfing water like it had gone out of style. That’s okay. I take it out in the rent they pay me. The rental coin they give me is the sweetest coin there is; Clover honey (with my tomato blossoms mixed in). They don’t drink much and they don’t bother Cleo or me when we are out on the porch. They are good neighbors. Besides. I like company.
