Bee keeping, like gardening, is touted as one of those restful hobbies, yet I find both anxiety inducing. Right now I’m to be putting Mite Away strips inside the hive to kill mites living on the bees, but I’m too nervous to do it. I phoned the company in Ontario, and they seem to feel it’s quite a simple procedure.

But anything new frightens the Hell out of me, so I prefer to avoid it. If I imagine something’s going to be hard I feel the best response is to run away from it and pretend it’s not there. I suppose it’s another of the maladjusted behaviours I’ve developed over time.

Here’s another, though it’s a lot more enjoyable. If someone’s acting like a dick on the highway, I feel it’s my duty to enlighten them. So imagine my joy to find myself in one of those teachable moments as I drove home from Osoyoos on Labour Day.

A young kid with an N proudly displayed on the car decided to drive about two inches from my bumper, though he/she could easily see I was following another vehicle and unable to drive any faster. This kind of rude B.S. has to be nipped in the bud.

If you know Highway 97, you’ll enjoy this even more, as I was at the primo spot for lesson teaching: Antlers Beach. The kid was on my tail as we came down the hill into Antler’s Beach, and from there it’s no passing all the way until the light leading into Peachland.

As I came down the hill and around the corner I thought oh dear, I’d better slow this vehicle right down. We were in a long line of traffic, both ahead of me and behind. So I slowed my buggy down to about 20 km and kept that up for an awfully long time (the speed limit’s 90). The cars ahead of me were a long distance away.

Two or three minutes can go by awfully slowly if you’re following someone going 20. I figure that gives them time to understand what’s occurring. Sure enough, the kid seemed to learn, because once I had sped up to 100 and caught up to the line of traffic ahead of me, the kid kept a respectful distance for the rest of the way.

I kept hoping he/she would try the race-up-to-the-car gag again, and was saying aloud, “Do you feel lucky punk, do ya?” But they obviously didn’t, and just behaved instead.

Less joyful was the unexpected return of Nicky and Haruka after just one night of camping. They were off for “two or three nights” and I was very hopeful it would be the full three. However after 24 hours they were back, Nicky explaining the’d forgotten the most important supplies, the sleeping bags.

When I was in Osoyoos for the Labour Day weekend I accompanied Luke and Jan to a house for sale. They’re leaving the sainted Pink Casa by the end of this year as mom’s decided not to sell the orchard but to lease it to our nice neighbour. He needs the pink house for his Mexican migrant workers, and so change is in the air.

But not for this jammed up person, who’s too frightened to put mite strips into a hive.