TIME AND INEVITABILITY
Borland, Hal
Time and Inevitability by HAL BORLAND Qo it is almost a new year accord-^ ing to the calendar, and we have safely passed the solstice. That means the daylight is beginning to lengthen, though I...
...They are still there and thriving...
...A selection of those editorials has recently been published in a book entitled "Sundial of the Seasons...
...And that is sound enough, probably...
...A lot of things are matters of timing...
...Guess we'll have to use smoke," Charley said, and Ed said, "Late this afternoon, when it begins to chill off...
...Anyone can dispose of a swarm in midwinter, but by then they have eaten a good part of the honey...
...They bored holes in the sheathing board, inserted a long tube, built a smudge and blew the smoke in, plenty of smoke...
...That's what makes February tolerable, the lengthening daylight and the bigger arc the sun cuts across the sky...
...We are now in Capricorn, he says, the sign of the goat...
...We had that big apple crop because of the timing last spring...
...They knew the inevitability of wolves and hunger before the relaxation and relief of the New Leaf Moon...
...A swarm in July, Not worth a fly...
...And after Aquarius comes Pisces, the fishes...
...A lot of honey in there," Charley announced, "if they came in May...
...Last spring we had a killing frost the first week in June...
...Being moderately truthful, I have to admit that if I had gone out onto the front porch at 5:15 and whistled and shouted and even commanded, the sun wouldn't have risen then...
...If he waited for chilly weather he could dispossess his bees, get a few gallons of honey, and still have time to finish the shingling before winter really set in...
...With them we are armed for most eventualities, though it does sometimes seem that we talk ourselves into a lot of unnecessary troubles...
...And then they took off the sheathing boards and got at the comb and the honey...
...That's one thing you learn as a countryman...
...That is why there are still a couple of bushels of Baldwins and Jonathans down there...
...Probably basswood honey, since there are lots of basswood trees along the river close by, and the basswood bloomed especially well last June...
...Actually, they were my bees...
...He had handled wild bees a lot of times...
...Maybe more...
...Some years it doesn't really take hold till after the solstice, but some years it sets its teeth by Thanksgiving...
...But without words we would still be scrounging among the roots and huddling in caves, so it probably evens out in that area too...
...They knew the sun was strengthening, but they also knew it took time for change...
...January, after all, was the Wolf Moon to the Indians, and February was the Hunger Moon...
...That means the daylight is beginning to lengthen, though I have to look in the almanac to prove it, and even then take it on faith...
...The rain didn't come, and the apples did, a result of timing and inevitability...
...The evening-out is a matter of several years, not just a few seasons...
...We want to believe that, too...
...A good time to have your hernia fixed, too...
...they are our favorites, and they don't keep too well anyway...
...The bees drove him off the staging...
...Both Ed and Charley were up the ladders, but the way they came down they didn't really need any rungs...
...Last winter Ed said he felt the wind coming through that end of the house...
...But the ground under the trees was still red with apples in November, to the delight of deer and raccoons...
...We had a big apple crop last fall, the biggest in many years, despite the drought that burned pastures and cut the corn crop in half...
...But over the years it averages out, and we can count on about three months of snow and cold...
...Like winter...
...We even listen to the old-timer who, though he doesn't believe in astrology, does set store by the zodiac...
...I pleaded for rain at apple blossom time, for the drought was already setting in...
...It didn't burn the house but it did scorch the shingles on one end of it...
...There may be quick answers and easy solutions to some problems, but the big ones take time...
...They set up two ladders and started to remove a sheathing board where the bees had their entrance...
...Usually they head up the mountainside back of the house, where they start a new colony in another hollow tree, but seven years ago they went up the road to Ed's house, found an opening among the shingles on the sunny end, and colonized there...
...As for fire, there it is on the hearth, and there it is in the sky...
...So we do the chores, morning and evenings, by lamplight, and we are grateful for a tight roof, stout walls, and a fire...
...If the bees stay home sulking, a lot of apple blossoms don't get pollinated, and we have a normal short crop, plenty for our own use but no great excess...
...From time to time someone suggests that I cut down that tree and get the honey, but even a barrel of honey wouldn't be worth as much as that tree to me...
...There wasn't as much of it as they had expected, twenty-five or thirty pounds, but it was very fine honey, some of the sweetest I ever tasted...
...The drought gave him time last summer by easing his field chores, so he bought new shingles and began ripping off the old ones, row by row, and replacing them...
...The summer after it was built was dry...
...Then the old man says, "After Capricorn, comes Aquarius, the Water Boy...
...That is a bit more complex, but it was a matter of timing, Ed lives up the road from me, in a (© Copyright 1964 by Hal Borland) HAL BORLAND, the distinguished nature writer, writes the editorials on nature for The New York Times...
...Corn didn't do well, but it did fill the silos...
...Apples are fertilized by bees, and bees sulk in chill, damp weather...
...Ed had two bees under his cap and several more inside his shirt...
...He got as high as the second-floor windows and had to stop...
...They are good neighbors, and they pollinate my apple blossoms, among other friendly chores...
...Late afternoon they went at it again...
...Short as hay is this year, a load of hay's worth a pile of money...
...Like my apples...
...But as long as we keep talking, with those precious words, we have a chance to find the answer to this problem, too...
...And he adds, "This is a good time to wean calves, butcher meat, and have teeth pulled...
...That scorching eventually made the shingles curl a bit, and as the years passed the curling increased...
...Charley was slapping so much you couldn't tell where he had them...
...I watch them swarm, which is a fascinating thing, and fly away in a moiling throng...
...No problem to it, Charley said...
...So we retreat to the fire again, and are grateful for two epochal events that happened so long ago that only the most ancient myths even try to account for them—the capture of fire and the invention of speech...
...He asked Ed what month this swarm arrived and took possession...
...We wait the winter out, knowing that the ice in the river is not going to be there forever and that the snow in the fields will help to repair the damage of the drought...
...Ed didn't mind...
...Capricorn rules the knees, so watch your rheumatism, and remember to say your prayers," he warns...
...When I came here there was a swarm of bees in a big sugar maple just across the road from my house...
...Charley nodded and quoted the old saying: "A swarm in May, Worth a load of hay...
...And there is the sun, which within another month will be rising before seven o'clock for the first time since the first week in December...
...I was there the morning they chose...
...Ed knows, as most countrymen do, that you pick your time for dislodging a swarm of bees...
...So Ed and Charley, another of my neighbors, chose a dark, chilly day in early November to go after that honey in the walls of Ed's house...
...And not setting till after five, with twilight stretching until almost six, especially with snow on the ground...
...Take the apples down in our root cellar...
...Wrong time of day," Charley said, and Ed agreed...
...That colony died out the second year...
...It was just a matter of timing...
...So he waited...
...By August the load of fruit was so heavy it literally broke limbs from the trees and, by September, I was stowing apples in the root cellar, ashamed to let them go to waste...
...Particularly if you want to get honey...
...Even to the month that swarm moved in, if I can believe the old saying about a swarm in May...
...But when we ask for further advice, he only says, "Keep your feet warm and your head cool, and don't try to hurry things...
...Two wet signs...
...a countryman should have repairs made to himself when farm work is slack...
...I was up two hours before the sun rose this morning, and if I were of a mind to take credit I might say I was the fellow who routed it out of bed...
...There was a swarm of bees in the wall and every time he drove a nail they came boiling out and made it clear that they didn't like the goings-on...
...So we came into the winter with things reasonably well in hand, all things considered...
...Among his other books are "When the Legends Die" and "Beyond Your Doorstep...
...Besides, he likes honey...
...But when I went out to look at the thermometer—it showed just two above zero—at 7:15, all I had to do was snap my fingers and look off to the east-southeast, and there was the sun peering over the horizon...
...Without words, to speak or read, and without fire, we would indeed be forlorn in any winter...
...All the change thus far has been in the time of sunset...
...The weather was warm and dry right through apple blossom time, and the bees spent sixteen noisy hours a day in the trees...
...One way and another, things compensated even if they didn't even out...
...and when Albert, my neighbor down the road, finally gave up on his spring and called in a well driller, he got a flowing well, to everyone's surprise—so much water he had to put in an overflow and channel it into the dry brookbed...
...He decided to re-shingle it when he got time...
...We all got safely away and watched the bees go back into the wall...
...And we hold it in its most awesome form in our trembling hands, not yet knowing what to do with it...
...But more often than not we have a spell of chill, damp weather just as the apple trees bloom...
...Ed wasn't of a mind to dispute them...
...Like winter itself, which always leads to spring...
...Every few years a young queen from the swarm in my maple tree leads the excess population from the colony to a new home...
...Then, three years ago, another swarm from my tree chose Ed's house and established themselves more successfully...
...Ed finished shingling that end of his house, and we all had honey, which was a consequence of timing...
...Last spring, however, the timing was perfect...
...We don't grow apples for market...
...Crops were short, but we cut a heavy yield of early hay...
...There are breaks, such as the January thaw, most years...
...the sun is still reluctant to rise in the morning and get the fire going...
...They were the ones that interrupted Ed's shingling...
...That's the way things go...
...We come into Aquarius on January 20...
...Like Ed's honey...
...Springs failed, but the wells held up pretty well...
...The Snow apples were gone by Thanksgiving...
...Maybe it also is a matter of time and inevitabilities...
...Two hammer blows and the bees came streaming out...
...We keep the old trees because we think apple blossoms are something special, and we always have a wonderful wealth of them...
...A swarm in June, Worth a silver spoon...
...Timing, and inevitability...
...Somehow a grass fire got started in the side yard and reached the house before it was put out...
...Besides, I like to have the bees there...
...shingled farmhouse that was built when he was a small boy...
...Winter is going to last a good three months, and we know it...
...So we made the best of it...
...This time the timing was right...
...Or take the matter of the bees in Ed's house...
...Ed said it was in May...
...Some years it spends itself by mid-March, but some years it hangs on into April...
...And there are the holidays, every year, which haven't a thing to do with weather but do lighten the heart...
Vol. 29 • January 1965 • No. 1
