Hickory Honey

I wish I could market this stuff.  It is the best! 

You've probably never heard of such a thing, right?  There's a story behind my discovery.

Little by little some bees took up residence inside the roof of the recording studio next door.  When they started getting too numerous and aggressive, we hired some local bee keepers to get them out.  I was shocked at the amount of honey we reaped from this little project.  In all there were about three gallon size ice cream containers full of honeycomb.  We gave some away, but still harvested about half a gallon of the world's best honey.

Talking to the bee keepers, who transported the bees out to the country where they have several hives, we learned that honey looks and tastes different at different times of the year.  It depends on what flowers are blooming.  This makes sense, but I could not imagine what flowers our bees could have found during these long months of dry season in the dessert.  The only thing blooming besides some jasmine, bougainvillea and a few geraniums I keep watered are mesquite trees out in the desert.

Mesquite!  Like the liquid smoke we put in our barbecue beans and brisket to make it taste smokey.  That's it!  The secret of my smoke flavored honey.  Lack of variety in diet for these particular desert bees produces a delicious honey.

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Today is Benito Juarez's birthday, a national holiday in honor of the orphaned Zapotec Indian from Oaxaca who became president of Mexico just before the American war between the states.  You can see him pictured on the 20 peso bill.  Most businesses are either closed or very crowded every March 21, and the kids are home from school.

Jim, Jonny, and several friends are out working on removing all the old tiles from the roof of the studio on this "day off."  Next phase will be to replace the boards underneath them, and then put new tiles on to hopefully prevent further leaks once rainy season starts.  Hopefully the bees are gone for good now, and no one will be stung in the process.

Meanwhile, Debbie is out hanging the laundry.  I just wanted to show off the gorgeous bougainvillea and jacaranda tree in the background.  The color is in stark contrast with the brown of our driest time of year.


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This day in history 1994:  The Loker family was en route from the states after ministering to migrant workers in Culiacan ( northern state of Sinaloa), to begin living and working in Oaxaca full-time.  We found ourselves in Veracruz, hoping to spend the night before continuing our journey.  No such thing as a vacant hotel room  in Mexico on March 21.

We were directed to the last vacancy in town, an "auto hotel" (pay by the hour) room with one huge bed.  Leaving the children in the car, we went to check it out, and quickly voted "No!" after seeing the round bed with red velvet bedspread, mirror on the ceiling, and, well, other things we would not have liked to explain to our almost 3-,  barely 5-, almost 7-, and 8-year-olds.  We opted to drive many more miles late into the night to reach a more suitable place for the family to rest.

Now we've officially lived in Oaxaca 17 years.  I guess it's about time we tiled the floor, replaced the roof, and started some serious home projects, huh?