Hello!

Welcome to Don’t Fleece the Bees, a blog about embracing the simple, the natural, and the imperfection that life has to offer. I hope that you enjoy your visit and find something that you would like to READ, EAT, CREATE, or EXPLORE! Click on the Blog tab to check out posts about those four topics.

But first I should explain the blog name.

Have you read Shel Silverstein’s book The Missing Piece?

It’s beautiful. An allegory for life disguised as a children’s picture book. Simple and moving and wise.

The story goes like this: A circle is missing a piece. There is a pie-shaped wedge cut out of him, and so he rolls through life ever-searching for this missing piece. As he rolls along, he sings this song:

Oh I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece

I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece

Hi-dee-ho, here I go,

Lookin’ for my missin’ piece…

Oh I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece

Over land and over seas

So grease my knees and fleece my bees

I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece.

And eventually, after much looking, he finds his missing piece. It fits perfectly! He’s now complete. But the thing he hadn’t realized at the time was that it wasn’t all bad to be missing a piece. He had to roll more slowly because of it. He had time and opportunity to smell the flowers and befriend a butterfly. But now that he’s complete, he zips along too quickly, rolling past all of these things. In the end, he lets the missing piece go.

I love this story because it reminds me that it is hard to live in the present. It is easy to believe that there is something else, something missing, that will make us complete and bring us happiness. But there is joy in imperfection and experimentation and in slowing down to enjoy life. It can be hard to focus on what ISinstead of what is missing. I need reminded of this on pretty much a daily basis!

So through this blog, I hope to share some of my thoughts and experiments in doing things the slow way; eating, reading, creating, and exploring mindfully; and definitely—absolutely—NOT fleecing the bees.