You have to take springtime on its own terms in the Ozarks: there is no other way. It can't be predicted. It is unsteady, full of promise, promise that is sometimes broken. It is also bawdy, irrepressible, excessive, fecund, willful. Sue Hubbell More Quotes by Sue Hubbell More Quotes From Sue Hubbell I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees' lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human. Sue Hubbell suits bees remember I have stopped sleeping inside. A house is too small, too confining. I want the whole world, and the stars too. Sue Hubbell stars house sleep Beekeeping is farming for intellectuals. Sue Hubbell farming Then there is that other appeal, the stronger one, of spending, during certain parts of the year, a ten- or twelve- hour working day with bees, which are, when all is said and done, simply a bunch of bugs. But spending my days in close and intimate contact with creatures who are structured so differently from humans, and who get on with life in such a different way, is like being a visitor in an alien but ineffably engaging world. Sue Hubbell stronger world years Nothing gives a person more confidence... than to be zipped snugly inside a bee suit. Sue Hubbell bee person nothing confidence In the wild, those traits that are adaptive for survival and reproductive advantage are brought out through natural selection. So cats that were fierce, furtive hunters, alert to the snapping of every twig, with coats that gave them good camouflage, would have been favored by evolution. Sue Hubbell cats good fierce survival We humans are a minority of giants stumbling around in a world of little things. Sue Hubbell minority things little-things world My bees cover one thousand square miles of land that I do not own in their foraging flights, flying from flower to flower for which I pay no rent, stealing nectar but pollinating plants in return. Sue Hubbell plants own flying flower I know a number of coastal trails in downeast Maine, all of them interesting. Sue Hubbell them know maine interesting Healthy camel crickets spend a lot of their waking hours grooming, so I have learned to recognize the ones that will soon die because they walk about encrusted with sand and bits of litter, having lost all interest in keeping clean. Sue Hubbell walk die will i-have-learned I've lived all over the country - Michigan, California, Texas, New Jersey, Rhode Island and, now, Maine - but I never understood springtime until I spent 25 years farming in the Ozarks. Sue Hubbell island new never country Spring starts in January in the Ozarks, lurches on in a complicated way, with spurts and setbacks, until May. Then, early in May, there is a cold spell known as blackberry winter because it comes when blackberries bloom. It is a worrisome week for anyone who farms. Sue Hubbell cold complicated winter way Bees are easier to keep than a dog or a cat. They are more interesting than gerbils. They can be kept anywhere. Sue Hubbell more cat dog interesting Sometimes, I wonder where we older women fit into the social scheme of things once nest-building has lost its charm. Sue Hubbell women wonder lost sometimes Great Wass Island Preserve is a 1,579-acre Nature Conservancy jewel, a place of spectacular botanical interest, and Jonesport is situated on a postcard-pretty harbor. Tourism is not serious business in those parts - boat building and fishing are - and there are no signs telling how to get to Great Wass. But I know. Sue Hubbell great nature business fishing Maine is a movable music festival in the summertime. Sue Hubbell festival maine summertime music A rule about portages: the longer and harder they are, the fewer people will make them. Sue Hubbell make about will people Our family was like no one else's. My schoolfriends had fathers and grandfathers and uncles who did things, but in my family, women had been the doers. Sue Hubbell things like women family It wasn't that there weren't menfolk in my grandmother's stories. There were lots of them but they died young or were drifters and dreamers who disappeared or turned to drink or succumbed to melancholia or slow mortal diseases. The women, on the other hand, lived a long time and were full of spit and vinegar until the end. Sue Hubbell long-time women time long I married a university professor, raised a son, and worked as an academic librarian. My husband and I moved to the Ozarks, bought a farm, and started a commercial beekeeping business. And divorced. Sue Hubbell university husband business son
