The Pogodatree Flower

Yu Yuan Lake acacia flowers in full bloom, like a heavy snowfall, white dazzling. Here comes the beekeeper. The beehives were put in place, and his "home" was also settled. A thick black canvas canopy painted with paint. Inside, there were two earthen weirs, and a few wooden boards were set up on top, which were beds. A roll of bedding on the bed. Oil bottles, soy sauce bottles, vinegar bottles were lined up on the floor. A white iron barrel already had more than half a barrel of honey in it. Outside a pot sat on a honeycomb coal stove. A woman was chopping green garlic on the counter. When the pot was boiling, she dropped a handful of dry cut noodles into the pot. When the noodles were cooked, she put them in a bowl, added the ingredients, sprinkled the garlic, and ladled half a spoonful of bean curd into a bowl. One bowl for each person. She ate the one with bean curd.

The bees were busy picking honey and flying in and out all day.

I bought honey from the beekeeper twice, and when I came back from my walk around Yubuantan, I passed by his shed and mostly sat on the stump in front of his door, smoked a cigarette, watched him collect honey, scraped wax, and chatted with him, so we got to know each other.

This is a fifty-year-old middle-aged man, tall and thin, the body does not seem to be good, he always do things so calmly, slowly and methodically. The appearance is not like a farmer, but a bit like a rural school principal. Listen to the accent, is the Shijiazhuang area. He has been to many provinces. Wherever there are flowers, go there. Where the vegetables bloom, where the roses bloom, where the apples bloom, where the dates bloom. Every year, he went to the south for the winter, Guangxi, Guizhou. When the spring is warm, then turn north. I asked him if date palm honey was the best, and he said it was the best honey from the wattle blossoms. This was a surprise to me. The wattle is an insignificant thing, and I have never seen wattle in bloom, but I can't imagine that wattle flower honey is the best honey. I think he should have a good income every year. He said it was better than the average farmer, but it did not fall much: bee equipment, road expenses; and every year to lose dozens of pounds of sugar - bees do not collect honey in winter, have to feed it sugar.

The woman is obviously his wife. But the difference in their age is too great. He is fifty, and the woman is in her early thirties. Moreover, she is from Sichuan and speaks Sichuanese. I asked him: How did you meet? He said: She is from Xinfan County. That year he went to Xinfan to release bees and met her. She said the rice from the north was good, so she came with him.

Is it that simple? Maybe she saw his good temper and liked such a quiet and calm character? Maybe she thought this beekeeping life, running around the southeast and northwest, good fun? This is a kind of rural-style romanticism. Sichuan girls tend to do things very spontaneous, what they want, unlike northern girls have so many considerations. They have been married for a few years now. Her husband treats her well, and she is considerate of him. She feels that her choice was not wrong, is satisfied and has no regrets. I asked the beekeeper: Has she ever gone back? He said: She went back once, alone. He asked her to bring 2,000 yuan, she bought some gifts for people, and made a trip back to Xinfan in style.

One day, I didn't see the woman and asked the beekeeper where she had gone. The beekeeper said, "I went to my eldest son's house to pick up my eldest son's children. He has an older son who works in Beijing as a worker in an auto repair shop.

She brought back a four-year-old boy and took him to live in the shed for a few days. She took him to the Ganjiakou shopping mall to buy clothes, shoes, cookies, and iced gourds. The boy played chicken pecking in bed while she crocheted a big red woolen hat for him with a crochet hook against the blanket. She loves this child very much. This love is completely non-utilitarian, neither to please her husband, nor to make good relations with his son's family. It is a very kind and beautiful heart. The child called her grandmother and she smiled.

After a few days, she sent the child back.

Two days later, I went for a walk to Yubuantan and the beekeeper's shed was dismantled and the beehives were gathered together. When I returned from my walk, the beekeeper's eldest son drove a truck, loaded the shed posts, boards, coal stove, pots and pans and beehives, and the beekeeper and his family got in the truck and the truck drove away.

The acacia flowers in Yuyuan Lake have fallen.