2024 was a Blur

A couple of weeks ago Ginelle, Midgie, and I nestled into a dear friend’s cabin in the Siskiyou Mountains for our annual review of the past year and strategic visioning for the upcoming months. There were truths, fears, regrets, and gratitudes spoken aloud though tears and laughter.  Most importantly, upon reflection – we realized that we had accomplished so much more than we had assumed.  What a blur of a year 2024 was!

In 2023 we achieved nearly all of our goals that we had set out for.  2024 was about building upon the foundation that we had worked so hard to lay by achieving those goals.  Dreaming up an idea is the easy part for me, taking a step down the road to make it happen takes bravery.  Staying on the road while there is a mountain on one side, a cliff on the other, and an untold number of poppy fields and enchanted trees chucking apples at us requires nearly blind trust in a force outside of ourselves, strength we didn’t believe we had, and community in places we would never expect.

In my personal life I survived the brutality of deceit and betrayal by the person I loved most in this world. This heartbreak, and the losses and the grief that accompanied it overshadowed so much of our year. For the rest of my life, I will brim with gratitude for how Ginelle and members of our wine making and ranching community showed up with compassion, empathy, and love. Sometimes that looked like trying to find me a place to live. Sometimes it looked like recommending that I let the land hold me so I could just curl up and weep in a pasture. Sometimes it was driving me to the center of a bison herd to we could just sit and feel. Sometimes it was recognizing that I was catatonic and ensuring that I got a long, hot shower. And sometimes it was drinking so much good wine that I laughed tears of joy and fell right off my chair.

This “brand” has always been about authenticity and it hasn’t felt right not to share my whole truth with you this year.  Also, thank you to you – our followers and supporters who have made it possible for me to have this job for the last decade and a half. I would not have survived this year without the bees, the land, the van, and this community.

In our retreat we discussed all of this deeply, and we also leaned into the systems that we have created to ensure the work continues, even in challenging and distracting times.  We revisited each of our programs to decide which ones deserve the most focus.  We scored and ranked all of them based on our values (conservation, regeneration, complexity, resilience, and affection) and our standards:

·       Work that has immediate and lasting impact,

·       Builds community through generating a love and appreciation for our bees,

·       Is accessible to the partner and their communities,

·       Directly or indirectly provides bee habitat through preserving what is there or creating something new,

·       Is measurable,

·       Is fundable (is supported by our collaborating partners, or is attractive to donors and grant makers to fund),

·       Brings joy to ourselves and our partners,

·       Has a sustainable ROI,

·       Is doable in a dynamic world,

·       It builds climate change resilience for our partners/collaborators,

·       Is based on a positive and affectionate working rapport,

·       There is an alignment of values with the partners involved,

·       We work where we’re wanted,

·       Prioritizes unique, agricultural landscapes that have potential to act as bee refugia.

In 2024 we put our heads down, put one foot in front of the other, and got our work done in the end. In 2025 I’m craving bringing the enthusiasm, passion, and creativity back into my life and into my work.

Here is what we are most looking forward to in 2025:

·       Receiving our bee data (any day now) from our new taxonomist, Skyler Burrows, to add to past years’ data and then work with our data analyst, Dr. Autumn Smart, to create beautiful visualizations to tell the story of what we are seeing on the working landscape.

·       Joining Patagonia's 'Personal Storytelling Masterclass Cohort' with The Million Person Project – where I will learn how to my own story as well as the story of our work with bees, bison, cows, wine grapes, and the people who raise them.

·       We are so excited to already have so many opportunities to share our stories in the coming year Ginelle and I will be presenting to the National Bison Association, the National Bison Summit, the Ashland Rotary, the Medford Garden Club, the El Dorado Beekeepers Association, the Montana NRCS, and a possible workshop collaboration with Xerces in Montana.

·       Midgie and I are looking forward to climbing back into the campervan to work on “Bee Friendly Vineyards” in California and Oregon, “Bison and Bee Habitat” in Montana and South Dakota, and “Coexistence & Bee Habitat Regeneration in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.”

·       I’m relishing the darker, slower days to spend time in the art studio – experimenting and creating new works for “Bee Habitat in Cyanotype.”  We’re lining up a whole year of celebrations, artist’s talks, and exhibitions for our community to join us. 

·       I’m also excited to collaborate with Skype a Scientist, Glory Bee’s SAVE the BEE, and the Pine Ridge Reservation to continue to educate and inspire our youngest generation to love their bees through an array of projects and programs in 2025.

·       Last but not least, Ginelle and I are looking forward to another year of taking care of our honey bees by moving them through the valleys of Southern Oregon to the safest and most beautiful places to produce Bee Girl Honey to share with our community!

This work would be impossible with out the support of people who care about bees, who care about me, who care about the planet, but most importantly care about each other.  Thank you for being a shining star in my universe, even in the bleakest of times.