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Do we need to send Todd out to attempt to communicate with them?
No, it's just Tim and Tracey Wiederaenders in their beekeeping suits. Our own fellow club member, Tim Wiederaenders, the Editor of our Prescott Daily Courier newspaper, dropped his editorial pen and shared with us his "other life," presenting a fascinating program on "What About Those Bees?" For those of us who only consume the honey that bees produce, a lot of the facts and information Tim disclosed about the nature, the life and the roles of bees were things most of us never knew. While the bee hives we may see out in the fields are all plain white boxes, not Tim's and Tracey's. They have three beautiful, artistically-adorned bee condos of different sizes, which each having its own name. We learned that most of the honey found in the stores is imported, and at least some of it has disguised corn syrup in it. While the Wiederaenders have only harvested honey from their hives three times during the 8 years they have been keeping bees, and they do not sell their honey, Tim encourages buying local genuine, high-quality honey, if we want the best. One of the reasons Tim and Tracey have not taken out more honey from their hives for themselves is they want to assure that their bees have enough natural honey to eat during the hard times. They refuse to resort to feeding their bees inferior sugar water during those times, as some other beekeepers do, in order to keep them alive. Tim's most important take-away he wanted us to get from his presentation is to understand the devastating effect of our spraying flowering weeds with Round-Up, and similar weed killers. The unsuspecting bees who gather the pollen visit the flowers on those weeds, and they bring back that poison on their legs, which can kill a hive. Tim says that those pollen-gathering bees actually range for miles from their hives, in order to collect enough pollen; so the danger is not just from spraying weeds in the immediate vicinity of the hives. BTW: Tim managed to escape fines for the day with his answer to Laura's opening Question/Joke: "Where did Noah keep the bees?" Tim's answer: "In the Ark hives, of course!" As our club's Programs Committee Chair, Tim urged other club members to let him know if they also have unusual "other lives," or interesting hobbies, which they would be willing to share with the club, as one of our club meeting programs. Thanks, Tim, for a great job!! CLUB SERVICE A week ago on Friday, President Laura, along with Pres.-Elect Christy, made the trip down to Anthem to deliver the traveling D5495 Friendship Trophy to Joe Alvarez, President of the thriving Anthem Rotary Club. Afterwards, they also exchanged club banners. Speaking of Rotary fellowship — where else, but in Rotary will you find a retired National League Umpire, an Interact Ambassador to Kenya, a practicing attorney, and a mortician collaborating on how to fix a malfunctioning closure device on a walker? I believe it was actually the Interactor who came up with the solution to the problem. I think I heard her say, as I passed by, "When all else fails, I just turn it over and whack it with a hammer!" Whatever they finally did to it, it works now; and it is ready to be shipped to Kenya. INSPIRING ROTARIANS Ann Lee Hussey, a Polio Eradication Inspiration One of the basic and most valuable benefits of Rotary are the ongoing opportunities to meet and work with some of the most incredible leaders and humanitarians in the world. In such a category is my friend Ann Lee Hussey, a Rotarian who lives in Maine. The trajectory and circumstances of Ann's life were dramatically altered when, at the age of only 17 months, she was diagnosed with the crippling disease of polio. As she has told me, along with our other Arizona Rotarians, when she has spoken here in the past, the physical hardships and social ostracism she had to face and navigate through as a child conditioned and molded her into an amazingly strong woman, who has become on of the most admired passionate leaders in Rotary's unwavering commitment to rid the world of this devastating disease. Ann Lee has led teams making at least 20 trips to countries where some of the world's most rugged and challenging mountainous regions are found. Their mission has been to get the disease-preventing and life-saving vaccine to all of the children in the world, no matter how remote and difficult to reach they may be where they live. Still dealing with some of the limiting effects of the disease, none of these trips have been easy for her. Nor are the innumerable other trips easy which she makes each year to encourage and inspire Rotarians to continue the fight we began in 1985 against this disease, until it is finally gone forever from the face of the earth. On this World Polio Day we celebrate this week, I salute Ann Lee Hussey. She continues to be an inspiration to me, and to tens of thousands of other Rotarians around the world. YOUTH & INTERNATIONAL SERVICE Crutches Rehab Project Some of our crew, obviously having fun working together on replacing cracked and worm parts on the crutches. PHS Interact Ambassador to Kenya Jenna Fox was on the equipment cleaning crew. Josh succeeds with the rehabilitation of another crutch, to add to his growing stack of completed ones. Since Crutches Repair 101 was not included in Clent's curriculum preparing him for his career as a funeral director, it appears he is consulting Internet resources to conquer the challenge he is facing with that particular crutch. Ten SunUpians and PHS Interactors joined forces on Saturday to clean and repair the Northern AZ Crutches for Africa mobility devices. The Crutches and walkers are donated from across our area, and, thanks to Ron Williams, from the Rotary Club of Prescott, they are stored at no cost to Rotary at his Ponderosa Mini-Storage in Prescott. Rather than leaving the clean-up and repair the devices to those in the field, the team decided to take care of them here, where we have all the tools and supplies we need!
INTERNATIONAL SERVICE Our club is sponsoring a social and fundraiser Pints 4 Polio event this Tuesday, October 24, on World Polio Day, between 4:30 - 6:30, at the Lazy G Brewhouse, located at 220 W. Leroux in Prescott. You are invited and encouraged to come join us. IT'S HAPPENING! Right here in Prescott this weekend, Oct. 27-29. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity!  A guy was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night and in the middle of a storm. The night was rolling on and no car went by. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him.
Suddenly he saw a car coming toward him and stop.
Without thinking about it, the guy got into the back seat, closed the door and then realized there was nobody behind the wheel! The car starts slowly; the guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way. Scared, he starts to pray begging for his life.
He hasn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel. The guy, paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appears every time right before a curve.
Gathering his strength, the guy jumps out of the car and runs to the nearest town. Wet and in shock, he goes to a restaurant and starts telling everybody about the horrible experience he went through.
A silence enveloped everybody when they realize the guy was serious.
About half an hour later, two guys walked in the same restaurant. They looked around for a table when one said to the other, "Look John, that's the dummy who got in the car when we were pushing it."
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I hate it when I see an old person, and then realize we went to high school together.
__ I’ve reached that age where my mind says, “I can do that,” but my body says, “Try it and you’ll be sorry.” |
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