05 Jul Tue 2011
A Honey of a Honeycomb.....
Let me tell you about my latest Coconut Grove Farmer's Market adventure...
First, let's set the stage. Every Saturday between 10-5, a wonderfully wooded vacant lot is transformed into a tented wonderland full of yummy- delicious healthy food.
The lot is set right at the edge of where the Grove meets the "hood". So milling about you'll find folks who live on their yachts, upscale locals who can afford mega-bucks for organics, lots of vegetarians, vegans, raw foodies, curious onlookers, cancer patients, old hippies, a couple of homeless folks, and a junkie or two.... It's a very colorful throng, with a decidedly family feel, despite the wide socio-economic variables of the crowd.
Several weeks ago a homeless women with long grey dreds and a couple of missing teeth told me that there was a wild colony of bees in the local dominos park two blocks west. Well, if the market is on the cusp of the hood, two blocks west is....not a place I'd venture alone..... The following week she returned to tell me about them again.
Then, last week, a young couple from the area told me about the colony. Only they said the bees were gone. I'm guessing that the rains came and the bees took off. They offered to walk me over to the park. Since it was a man and wife, I figured the likelihood of me being jumped and robbed was somewhat lessened, so we strolled on over. Lo and behold, about twenty feet in the air was a huge free-form honeycomb. The husband asked if I would like the honeycomb, which of course I would, but it was so high up. "Don't worry," confided his wife,"He has a tree trimming business...this is no problem for him."
He continued that he'd "do it for a price. How about seven dollars?" When I agreed, he went on, "How about ten?" I said seven and a bottle of honey. Then I returned to the market.
A few minutes later he and his wife came back, bearing this huge, multi-lobed honeycomb. It was a thing of beauty, incredibly built, but fragile. Call me a sucker....I gave him the ten bucks, plus the honey.
Now I display it at the booth, hanging from the tent by a bungee cord. It's a great conversation piece.....As well as an architectural work of art...