Happy Monday everyone. It is bright and it is cold. I woke up and feel the need to huddle around my coffee cup this morning. Right now though just the warm scent coming from the coffee pot is helping. So while I wait for the brew, let’s jump into the morning prompt. Timers at the ready.
This wasn’t quite what I expected when I saw the sentence this morning. Then the timer started and this came out. I kind of like when my brain surprises me.
Monday, December 9th: They were after the honey.
They were after the honey. He knew it. As soon as he realized that his bees were producing the manuka honey so prized in the market, he knew they would come. In this area all of the farms producing manuka honey had been purchased by one company. At first no one realized it a they all went by different names.
Something always seemed odd to him about it so he did his research. All of the small companies, designed to look like mom and pop style operations were owned by the same parent company.
His little farm was out of the main area of production and as he kept his apiary small and his honey production low he thought they would leave him alone. Manuka was bug business these days and on farms where hard back breaking work often still only meant a thin margin between solvency and foreclosure the honey boom was a godsend.
It also made people greedy and companies circle.
He thought he would be safely ignored. After all, he didn’t even sell his honey, not really. He used it at the house and he gave it away to a few friends. Since he was always forgetting to purchase gifts it made an excellent thing to have on hand. The farm wasn’t his primary business. Illustration was. He worked remotely sending in drawings for children’s books and other illustrated texts. His work was good and he could do it from pretty much anywhere with a solid internet connection. When his dad got sick that helped a lot. He moved home and took care of the old man in his final illness.
The apiary was something he started when he was a child. He was touched his father kept it up, even though he had been somewhat lax in it’s upkeep. Putting everything back into tip top order gave him something physical to do when he needed a respite from caregiving duties inside the house.
After his father passed, he inherited the house and land and saw no real reason to go back. He had sold his house when he returned, no knowing how long he would need to be away. While he had friends his last relationship fizzled nearly a year before he relocated. There was no real reason to go back.
He had, surprisingly made a life for himself, reconnecting with some old friends and making new ones. Now he felt as though he was under siege. He looked at the paper. It was a letter requesting a meeting about his apiary and his land. It was from one of the not so mom and pop fronts for the corporation. He remembered his friend Mike getting a similar letter. He had followed the progress along until Mike ended up making an agreement with them.
He looked at the letter and knew they would start out politely. All of the people he talked to said they started that way. The hard ball tactics came later. He set down the letter and picked up his phone. Perhaps it was time to call the lawyers.
Ten til Midnight 