Doughnuts and Bees

I have been waiting for today. Today was the annual Pennsylvania Relief Sale with Proceeds that benfit Mennonite Central Committee. The sale is held at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg and we go almost every year. My favorite food are the doughnuts which are "FRESH" since they are being made in a room about 20 feet behind where they are sold. I like the glazed. It is probably good that the relief sale only happens once a year because people have been asking me if I am losing weight and I can happily tell them "yes." But I doubt if I would if the relief sale were more than once a year. My second favorite food is the milkshakes. Unlike the doughnuts the taste of these can be pretty much created at home with ice cream, milk and blender but they are good. I also like the strawberry pie but I didn't have any this year. I supposed because I got to talking to Paul Zook who was working at the apple dumpling stand so I bought one of those. I actually think the apple dumplings are somewhere else and they just reheat them but whatever the case they contain absolutely the worst apples. I seldom throw food away but I snacked on the outside crust, which in itself was a meal, before dropping the rest in the garbage can. My second favorite thing is watching the auctions. There are two of them going on simultaniously - the one is a quilt auction. They keep a running tally of how much they have made and sometime before I left I remember it was at $50,000 and still going. The paper tomorrow will probably have the total amount the auction made and may break it down to what they made selling quilts. I have never bought a quilt. The second auction is called the "Country Auction" and they sell all kinds of stuff, from tools to art work and some stuff in between. I had looked at the tables of stuff and had pretty much determined that I wouldn't be able to afford the one thing that did interest me (a hand carved releif painting of an East African Scene) and was sitting in the audience talking to my friends Jerry and Ann. Ann said something that the auctioneer said it was good deal and I looked up and the next bid was $22 so I bid. The other bidder then put it at $25 and so I bid $27. Then I turned to talk to Jerry and Ann again. I heard the auctioneer say something about $30 and then "sold to the bidder in the back for $27." So I hurridly had to get my number (which was 655) out of my back pocket. Turns out I bought a complete set of the state quarters which includes (and I didn't know this) Guam, District of Columbia, American Virgin Islands, Purerta Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. It was a total of 56 quarter in all so I guess my donation (or actual cost was about $15). My first favorite thing is seeing and talking to people. There were a lot of people and I saw a handful that I know (mostly from church). Today was a good day for that. Usually Esther comes with me but today she had to work so I didn't know exactly when to leave but I had some yard work I wanted to attend to and I had bought Esther some chicken so i left early afternoon. There was a wedding at church today and I would have been able to get back in time to do the sound for it but I am very thankful that Jonathan came in last evening for the rehersal and I think he knew what to do and did it very well. At least he didn't call me saying he had problems. Which brings me to today's real topic. Bumble Bees. Today was warm and sunny and when I heard the forcast I was looking forward to warm and sunny. My blueberries started blooming earlier this week and because it has been cool (too cool) there haven't been any significant number of bees visiting the flowers pollinating them and making sure that in June and July that I will be out eating massive amounts of fresh blueberries fresh from the bush. So this afternoon there were several varieties of bumble bees (some BIG and some smaller) and some other bees (some very small) all being who they are and that benefits all of us. Thank you God for Bees and help us (me) to remember who I am and do what I do because that will benefit everyone too. So as much as I enjoyed the doughnuts I think I like Bumble Bees more.