Just a Nice Day

Today we went to an apple orchard. I've picked apples before, of course, including the very few I got off my own tree this year, but I've never gone to an actual orchard and picked them. It was a lot of fun, despite the fact that I got stung by a bee and my arm is still a little sore. It wasn't even the bee's fault, and I feel terrible that the bee had to die because of an accident. I was picking an apple near where the bee was, and either the branch whacked the bee or another apple fell, but the next thing I knew, the bee had been knocked out of the air and fallen down my sleeve! I tried to be really gentle and shake it out, but being trapped in my sleeve, of course it stung me. It managed to sting me just slightly in one spot and then really released the main load of venom, stinger and all, in the other spot. Of course I had a first aid kit in the car, and of course it was one of those little worthless store-bought ones that had nothing in it but band-aids and Tylenol, when what I needed was baking soda and Benedryl. Fortunately, I'm not allergic to insect stings, so all I got was a local reaction. It still stings a little, even hours later, though if I didn't know where I'd been stung it would be hard to tell by appearance. I dealt with the lack of adequate first aid supplies by fishing some ice out of a cup of ice water we had in the car and icing the sting site while we paid for our apples and scooted on home. Fortunately the bee incident happened right at the end of the apple picking, so we missed nothing of the experience and brought home a trunkload of apples. My only regret is that bees die after they sting you, and as evidenced by my post of earlier this year, the last thing I want is for any bees to die. I guess I should take it as a good sign that so many bees were in the orchard in the first place.

All in all it was a nice day, stings notwithstanding. Nothing to do with writing, but sometimes you just need to go pick apples or do something that feeds your soul.