Shared By the Cowboys by Cassie Cole

20

Rebecca

A company came out to the ranch the next morning to install the solar panels. They noisily climbed all over the roof while we ate breakfast.

“Can’t get any peace and quiet,” Blake grumbled.

“Quit complaining. It’ll only take a day,” Mason replied.

I watched the four workers install the panels while doing my chores. First they screwed anchors into the roof, and drilled a hole through to the attic and ran a bunch of wiring. Then they strapped the solar panels to their backs and carried them up the ladder. Each panel was the size of a ping pong table, which made the men climbing the ladder look like strange, thin turtles.

“Can’t wait to be self-sustaining,” Cody told me while we watched them. “For over half the year, we can get most of our power needs from the sun. Don’t have to rely on Montana Electric, who keeps jacking up their prices.”

“If you were really self-sustaining,” I said, “you would have installed the solar panels yourselves, instead of relying on a third-party company.”

“Hell no!” Cody replied with a laugh. “I’d probably electrocute myself. I’ll leave that to the pros and focus on what I can do. Speakin’ of which, you want to help me harvest the honey later today?”

I nodded. “Come get me when you’re ready.”

The solar panels went up quickly. There were twenty of them altogether in a nice, neat grid. After that, the workers carried a bunch of equipment inside the house. They were running the power lines to the batteries, I assumed.

Blake came home on his horse to get more supplies, shook his head at the construction, then rode back out again.

I was mucking out the barn when Cody came to get me. “Ready to rock, Becca? Here’s your getup.”

I watched him put on the big white suit, then did the same. There weren’t booties attached to the bottom, so I had to tuck the pant legs into my cowboy boots. The big hood hung down my back, and was heavy enough that I had to use both hands to pull it up over my head. The visor was mesh, giving me a blurry view of everything.

“You’re on wheelbarrow duty,” Cody said, pointing. “I’ve got the smoker. Let’s roll.”

We walked out of the barn and to the east side of the property, where the orchard and bee hives were located. Cody carried a metal can, which looked like a watering can but with a flat spout on the end. He used a lighter to ignite a bunch of twigs and leaves in the back.

“In the wild, smoke is a sign of a forest fire,” Cody explained as we approached the hive. “When they smell smoke, the bees think they have hard times ahead, so they quickly gobble up a bunch of honey. Like a bear hibernating. Once their stomachs are full of honey, they get sleepy. Then they’re too docile to be aggressive.

“Kind of like when I crash after eating an entire pint of ice cream?”

He turned to me and grinned through his beekeeper hood. “Bingo!”

The hives looked like a couple of boxes stacked on top of each other. There were four stacks altogether. Cody squeezed the handle on the tin can, which let out puffs of smoke.

“Hello, my beautiful bee babies!” Cody said happily. “Don’t mind old Cody. He’s just your friendly neighbor, stoppin’ by to borrow a cup of sugar.”

He puffed the smoke in the air, then removed the lid on one of the hives. When he realized I was standing back, he waved me on.

“Come on, now. It’s safe. Just relax.”

I cautiously approached. The smoke may have calmed the bees but there was still an ever-present buzzing in the air. Bees darted through the air in every direction, and one even landed on the mesh visor part of my hood.

When I was close enough, I peered down into the hive. Inside were six wooden frames all in a row, with gaps in between. The gaps were covered with a white, waxy substance.

Cody put down the smoke can and used both hands to pull out one of the frames. The outer border was made of wood, but the interior was full of hexagonal honeycomb.

“Oh yeah, nice and juicy. There’s a lot of honey in here.” He used a brush to gently push the bees off the frame, then handed it to me. “Put that in the wheelbarrow and cover it with the tarp.”

He only removed three of the six frames from this hive. Then we went to the next hive and repeated the process all over again. After we had checked all four hives, we walked back to the barn.

“Why did you only take half the frames?” I asked. “The others had plenty of honey.”

“You don’t want to wipe out a whole hive. You just want to take the excess. The bees need the rest to survive the winter months.”

“Mason mentioned a cold front was coming in soon.”

Cody bobbed his hooded head. “This’ll be the last harvest we do before next year. But that’s all right. We have more honey than we know what to do with here.”

We returned to the barn and removed our hoods. Cody’s blond hair was all messy and sweaty, and his cheeks were flushed, but he was grinning widely.

He’s not as ruggedly handsome as Mason, I thought, but he’s definitely prettier.

Cody used a special knife to cut away the wax caps from the frame. Underneath was golden-brown honey, which began drizzling out.

“Yum!” I said.

Cody removed the wax from four frames, then placed them inside a cylinder drum. He turned a crank which caused the drum to spin.

“The centrifugal force pulls the honey out,” he explained while turning the crank.

We repeated the process for the next four frames, and the last four after that. Then Cody knelt down at the bottom of the drum and placed a bucket underneath a plug.

“Pull that plug, and let the honey flow!” he said.

As soon as I pulled the stopper, liquid gold honey began pouring into the bucket. Some got on my finger. I raised it to my mouth and licked it.

“Oh, it tastes so sweet!”

Cody dipped his finger under the stream and had a taste. Then he rubbed his finger against my mouth, smearing sweet honey.

“What’d you do that for!”

“So I have an excuse to do this.”

Cody leaned in and kissed me.