The Beach and the Bees

239 step up Mt. Pisga

 We are home after a week at a cottage on Lake Michigan north of Holland State Park.  We entertained Jim's siblings and spent a day with my sister and her husband. I swam almost every day and biked several times.  Jim got in his 10,000 steps each day and I did too on some of the days.  Jim golfed twice.  I read four books and Jim read one just for fun when he wasn't doing the Jubilees work that always comes with us.



Every night we were treated to a magnificent sunset.   I would take photos every few minutes because the sky kept changing.  The morning sky over the water was also beautiful.

Yet that beautiful water could be very dangerous.  Two teenagers drowned Wednesday night at Holland State Park.
 Swimming off the pier when there are rip tides was fatal.  We heard the sirens and then saw the helicopter and police boats looking for their bodies on Thursday morning.

We came home Thursday evening and when I walked into the hall, I said, "Jim, we have a problem."  I saw hundreds of dead bees on the floor.  It got worse when I walked into the bathroom.  The floor was covered with dead bees (and a few still wiggling) and there was a hole in the ceiling they had created to get through.  We spent the next hour cleaning up and plugging the hole with duct tape.  Two days later I was still finding single bees in odd places--like the toilet brush container or the window sill.


How awful it would have been to have come home to live bees buzzing us and threatening us!  Dead bees were an ugly sight but not frightening.

So there is yet another home repair awaiting us.  A financial planner told us to spend our money and enjoy it!   We are spending our money in large amounts but just for necessary mopping up after the "1000 year rain" and now ceiling repairs.  That's not what he had in mind!

We're thankful for the good memories of a week at the beach--and for the means to recover the losses at home--and to do it together in our 50th year of marriage.