Honey by the Road

An hour east of home the road grows honey stands the way other roads grow billboards, and the correct procedure is to stop at the one with the wagon, because a painted beekeeping trailer means the bees commute to the good meadows. The woman behind the tables had jars from pale gold to nearly black, arranged like a spectrometer reading of the whole valley.

Buying honey here is not a transaction, it is a tasting with homework. Sainfoin from the high fields, she said, and mountain herbs for the dark one, and I held the pale jar up to the light the way you hold a slide, and the light agreed with her completely. We discussed winters, bees, and the road, in that order of importance.

Two jars came home in the footwell, wrapped in a scarf like passengers. The pale one is already open. Toast has become the main meal of the working day and I decline to apologize.