I love everything about a beehive: the rustic look, the heavenly smell, the constant buzzing of bees... And I love that I haven't been stung - yet. That's right friend, I'm officially a beekeeper. The decision to keep bees was easy; my grandma had bees on the farm years ago and the blueberry field needs bees, so we thought it'd be the perfect first project.

Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight? Okay, maybe you have, but you have to admit these are pretty cool. They're fabulous in the most tacky way, perched just at the edge of the woods.

And you should smell these babies! If you haven't gotten to "take in" a beehive, you should make that a priority. Get your sniffer in there and really get in their bees-ness. Only then will you be able to smell the most amazing, sweetest, best thing in the world... All of that wax and honey and pollen mixing together, creating what has to be the perfume of angels.

And this angelic fragrance reminds me of none other than my grandma. She was a sweet soul, a gentle speaker, a farmer, a master beekeeper...and about a million other things I could only hope to be. I have memories of her in the basement separating the honey from the wax. Memories of those little bear jars full of that sweet nectar.

And memories of the smell...Oh me, oh my. I could go on forever about that smell...

a new endeavor.

This weekend was spent with my grandpa, or GrandPaul, as I like to call him (and as I write that, I wonder if he knows I have called him GrandPaul since I was little). We spent Saturday at the Farmer's Market and Sunday at a workshop. He had called last week to discuss the future of the nursery that resides on the farm. It's a nursery that contains over 1,000 plants and needs lots of care and time and energy and patience. And an amazing amount of know-how, something that comes so easily to my soil-scientist-PhD GrandPaul. He's a wealth of knowledge and I only wish I could absorb it all. And fast. Because...

My husband and I are buying the nursery in two weeks. (Two as in 2. Weeks. 15 days. *Gulp*)

But, am I panicking? Well, yeah. But only for a minute. Because soon, I'll know it all... or at least know that *he* knows it all and I do have his phone number... ;)

howdy.

Hello. Here I am almost a year into our move and am just deciding to write it all down. Or is it that I'm just now getting around to it? Anyhow, here I am. In all of my "just climbed out of bed/I need a glass of tea/can I pull this dirty hair off just one more day" glory. But we'll overlook that this one time, because there are more important things to talk about. Like, maybe my family. I have a tiny family; a talented, caring, sweet husband and a smart, talkative, white-haired, lovey two year old. We live in a tiny town in Tennessee. In a small house. With two cats. Anything I'm missing? Oh, and we own a farm. Not an animal farm - yet - but a u-pick farm. And our ultimate dream is to build a house there and grow our own foods and learn so much our brains are all full of good stuff. You know - about farm animals and gardening and bees and plants and birds and trees and greenhouses. And to truly know which came first - the chicken or the egg. I dream about the day I have my farm and can hear someone driving down my gravel driveway from 1/2 mile away. Ahh, the happiness my heart will feel. I cannot wait. But I have to. In the meantime, I will write. About our adventures where we are now. And how our path winds us around and plants us at the Greenbriar Farmstead, as I'm lovingly calling it.