No, Lulu. Try again.

Well it turns out my silk covered lampshade idea was just plain stupid and I really needed another option to display and photograph my jewels, so I told my Mama to put on her Sketchers and grab her cane because we were going exploring!  My butt was long tired from sitting in an uncomfortable chair at her kitchen table where I'd set up my beading station.  I needed a break and she needed to do something to tire herself out so she'd sleep all night without waking me up  exercise, so off we went into the vast wilderness that is her yard.

Now these woods down here are full of wildlife.  Bears, coyotes, raccoons, ticks and chiggers, and none of them scare me more than ticks and chiggers do.  I can probably outrun a bear or any other thing with fur (unless I stop to try and pet it) but ticks and chiggers are sneaky and stealth.  Especially chiggers. They are tiny, evil little be-otches that cause unsightly red welts that itch like crazy and if they attach to your nether regions, can make you wish you had only encountered a rabid bear. Then you have to paint yourself with fingernail polish to smother them and send them back down to hell where they came from. So trust me when I say I was willing to risk a wildlife catastrophe in order to find the perfect prop for the photo session I had scheduled for later in the afternoon.

On our expedition, I found three things.  A granite looking slab which I'm pretty sure came from the graveyard a mile away at the Mt. Elon Baptist Church, a rock looking slab I found on top on top of my deceased Daddy's million gallon gas tank (this house is in the middle of nowhere and he actually had his own gasoline tank/pump), and an old bee box that at one time held honey combs and when extracted, yielded pure gold, aka Tupelo Honey.  The stone slabs were stable as granite and rock tend to be, but the wooden bee box was compromised by the passage of time. Baked for years in the hot, Florida sun, soaked with rain and left to rot, overrun at it's base by a colony of ants. It was perfect.  I'd found my display with a wide open forest yard as a backdrop.  

My daddy was a Beekeeper.  He learned the art of it from his father, my Bigdaddy, and together they built a business and made a good living. It was hard, honest work and Daddy loved it and continued working his bees even after getting into politics and serving two terms as County Commissioner (at which he remained as honest as a politican can be). He eventually retired and enjoyed many years before he died but he had honey in his blood.  Maybe that was why he was so sweet.  I was his youngest child and although my Mama named me Robin, he called me Lulu.  Never anything else.  Just Lulu.

So finding this old box, this rotting piece of wood, was like finding treasure.  Gold.  The color of honey.  And now here I am, all caught up in these precious memories, and my thigh is starting to itch.  Dear Lord, please let there be some clear or flesh color OPI in my cosmetic bag...