Thursday, December 31, 2015

Merry Humbug

-Posted by Isaac

Humbug, for the very reason that here I am, again, slaving away on another blog post. My lovely wife catches up on her holiday beauty sleep. As usual, I'm delegated to doing all the work around here. I, gentle reader, dutifully keep you up to date on the Honeyrun Christmas.
Sorry, no Christmas rant this year. In fact, it was an extraordinarily joyous holiday.

A week ago we had sunshine aplenty and the bees were abuzz.


For the bees, record high temps were a welcome change from the bitter years previous.

Christmas day turned out to be very horsy.

 

Maizy has, for years, been our horse expert. But this year little Eden and Mason took some equine interest.



Aunt Teresa and Uncle Dave tried to pawn this old guy off to the bee farm.


Bridger was having none of it. No horses for him.
In fact, he'd be very satisfied if we sold all the bees and bought him a few acres of corn.
Bridger is a farmer. And a farmer needs tools. A farmer needs equipment.


My brother Justin calls Bridger a "BTO." 
I asked what this meant. (Bachman-Turner Overdrive?)
Dumbfounded, he gave a wry smile, "Big Time Operator."
Oh. Of course. Everyone knows that.

Speaking of BTO's, Justin passed out his new farm t-shirts. 

 

With the expectation, I'm guessing, that we'd wear them to the farmers markets. Maybe put in a good word for the hard working American grain farmer.
Or possibly, like our shirts, it will serve as an eye catcher. Humoring, broadening interest, and appeasing his loyal customers- Cargill.  I don't know?

Wait a minute. What does that say?


On second thought, no, I don't think so. Upon rereading, I'm sensing some ulterior motives here-- he's trying to steal our customers!
This is one sneaky bit of advertising. It not only appeases Cargill. If you look closely, this crafty ad is really designed to catch more than his 99.6% of the food economy. No fair!
Here, let me show you-- it's just peppered with buzz words designed to catch unawares the potential consumer:

              BUZZ WORD                                CAPTURED AUDIENCE

               "Dry"                   -------------              Teetotalers
               "Run"                    ------------      Fitness buffs / Health nuts
               "Farms"                ------------             The Antiquated
                "LLC"                   -----------        Alphabet enthusiastists
               "High"                   ----------                  Tokers
               "Corn-Fed"            ---------               Nebraskans
    "Genetically Modified"  ---------     Activists / Politicians  (All of us!)
            "Sustainable"         ----------  The delusional / The mentally ill / Optimists
               "Not"                  ----------------               Pessimists

Can you believe it?! Get a load of these grain farmers! The nerve! A devious and underhanded play at our unsuspecting customers. I'm calling him out!
And what really makes me sad in all this-- it's you who gets hurt. YOU, the innocent bystander in the food war. YOU, now unsure. YOU, not knowing which way to turn for sustenance.
I'm so sorry. So sorry.


Well, moving on.
Our Christmas always involves a trip with Grandma and the gang. This year, among a few other things, we went to "The Works" in Newark. There we watched something fascinating- glass blowing.

Bridger and Eden paid close attention.


And learned a lot.


We've actually just returned from that trip. And the holiday continues. Tonight we say goodbye to 2015. Time to kick back and watch a ball game. Time to reminisce.



I hope your 2015 was as wonderful as ours. I try to think of some words of wisdom. Something encouraging as we encroach on the wilderness of 2016. And I'm having trouble. It's early.
But here are two positives right off the top of my head: 1. Not Dead.   2. Still have internet access.
So there's your springboard into the New Year! Good Luck. It's going to be a great one!

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