Wide Open Skies

"It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream." ~ Bern Williams

The Big Sky State 

Somewhere along the line, Montana gained the slogan, The Big Sky State and Texas became The Lone Star State (a reminder that we Texans can secede whenever we want). Now, I don't have anything against Montana. And from what I've seen, it has some pretty big skies.

But the big sky of Texas is one of my favorite things about The Lone Star State. Perhaps it's not quite as expansive, the horizon not quite so limitless, as in Montana. But the colors that light up the Texas sky are unparalleled.

Sunrise, Sunset
Some evenings the sky is littered with powdery clouds, dusted a soft rose. Other nights the sun sinks below the horizon in a blaze of fiery oranges and yellows. Still other times twilight deepens into night with deep purples and navy blues. As cliché as the vibrance of a sunset may be, I nevertheless am always moved by it.

My friends and family all know how much I love looking at the sky. I always point it out and alert whoever is with me to my awe. I have done this so frequently that whenever my brother sees a particularly stunning sunset, he immediately texts me and tells to head outside and look up. I've found a spot near my house, just along the road, where a gap between the houses allows me a view of the sunset.

The sunrise from my front yard

Here, it's possible to look up into the sky. A friend from the East coast once told me how exposed he felt here. Without trees crowding around, pressing in and obscuring the sky, he felt vulnerable.

I feel free.

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright ... Deep in the Heart of Texas
Even in the city, or at least my city of 115,000, the stars are bright. The skies are clear, free of haze or smog or tree tops. On cloudless nights, it is easy to spot Ursa Major or Orion the hunter as he prowls through the night. Just a ten minute drive takes one away from the lights of the city and the hazy strip of the Milky Way is visible.

Photo not by me

Each August the Perseids meteor shower peaks in a shower of shooting stars. At its peak in 2010, over one hundred meteors could be seen each hour. The Perseids shower appears to emanate from the Perseus constellation, hence its name. Each year the earth passes through the debris of the Swift-Tuttle comet. As the debris passes through the atmosphere it burns, creating the meteor shower.

Last year my family drove just outside the city limits to watch the stars fall around us. We laid out in the bed of our pickup and I pillowed my hands behind my head. Crickets chirped and the cool breeze of a summer night whispered around us. The moon was dark that night, the earth between it and the Sun. With each meteor that streaked through the sky, my breath caught. No wonder the ancients thought meteors were from the gods.

The Wild Texas Skies
If you have the chance to watch meteors blaze across the Texas skies, take it. If the opportunity arises for you to watch the sun illuminate the Texas horizon as night falls, don't let it pass you by. And if you are able, take the time to watch the clouds assemble above to form a Texas thunderstorm.

Because the Texas skies are beautiful, wild and free and breathtaking.

The Taste of Sweet Mesquite Honey

“The only reason for being a bee that I know of is to make honey.... And the only reason for making honey, is so as I can eat it.” - Winnie the Pooh 

Nature's Sweetener

I've always loved honey. It's nature's natural sweetener. I love drizzling it over scones or stirring it into tea. Local honey is even better, because it's fresh and it helps the consumer to build immunity towards local allergens.


When my grandparents moved to Abilene, they bought a house that sat on three acres. Soon after they had settled in, my dad and granddad bought bees. They already had the hives from years before when they raised bees together when Dad was growing up in California. 


The bees pollinated the plants around my grandparent’s house. Though wildflowers make an appearance in the spring, the bee’s chief activity centered on the mesquite trees. I could always hear the low hum of thousands of buzzing bees as they buzzed around the pink redbud in front of the house and pollinated the scraggly mesquite trees out back. Bees land on the fuzzy yellow mesquite flowers and gather nectar, which they will convert into honey. 


I remember sticking my finger in the fresh honey and licking it off of my sticky fingers, savoring the golden goodness. Mesquite trees produce wonderful honey. It is thin, light and sweet and has a very high sugar content.

A mesquite flower

A Fledgling Beekeeper
I never robbed the bees; I was always too scared. But every year Dad and Granddad would don their white gear to rob the bees. The bees got agitated when we stole from them, so I made sure to stay inside the entire time. I have since learned that we did not technically “rob” the bees. Instead, we harvested the surplus of honey. 


Historically, bee’s hives were robbed and essentially destroyed. Beekeepers took all of the honey from the hives, leaving nothing behind. Bees actually make honey as a source of food. In the warm spring and summer months, they store this food in the hives. In modern times, a more humane method of gathering honey is employed. Beekeepers today take the excess honey and leave behind enough to sustain the bees throughout the winter months.

I may not have harvested the honey myself, but I did help prepare it. The people in protective suits would bring the frames indoors for those of us who hid inside in order to avoid stings.

We took the frames and placed them in honey extractors. 


Because we harvested honey only for ourselves, our extractor was cranked by hand. I would turn the crank, as furiously as possible, spinning the honey and draining it into a large metal vat. Thick and golden it would spin off the frame in long, sticky ropes. Sometimes, we would cut the honeycomb into pieces, to put in the jars with the honey.

Photo not by me

Killer Bees

But the bees were Africanized. For years, I didn’t understand what this meant. It seemed odd that bees had flown to Texas from Africa and somehow the Texan bees changed races, and became African. Of course, that is not the case at all. Also known as “killer bees,” these aggressive bees are a hybrid of the African hone bee and European honeybees. Swarms of Africanized bees invade a hive, kill the queen and replace her with their own queen.

Once a hive has been Africanized, there is only one option: terminate the hive. We did so one year and had to buy a new queen and hive. Unfortunately, this is time-consuming and unproductive. The best batches of honey come from established hives, not from newly developing hives.

A bee in my grandparent's red bud tree

Do I Smell Bananas?
Somewhere close to my grandparent’s house is a hive of Africanized bees. When bees are stirred up and upset, they release a pheromone that has an odor similar to bananas. This attracts other bees and when they smell this, they are also agitated. Granddad’s docile bees released this pheromone when they were robbed. The nearby Africanized bees smelled it and buzzed their way to our hives. The bees mixed together, agitating the European bees, so that they all swarmed and attacked. No one was seriously injured, but as my grandparents live next to a school, they decided the risk was not worth it.

We no longer raise bees and we no longer harvest honey. I miss the sweet golden nectar; store-bought honey is just not the same. It still amazes me that bees can transform the unappetizing mesquite trees into a delicate sweet.

Finding Beauty in West Texas

"But there is beauty here, the beauty of space and of freedom, and the beauty of the wind feeling its way along the brown, grassy swells and ruffling the yellow ridges." ~ A.C. Greene

People come to West Texas, or just drive through, and remark on how unattractive the area is. They want to see the tall mountains of Colorado or the sandy beaches of Florida. They want to see the geysers erupt in Yellowstone or the shifting colors of fall leaves in Massachusetts. We have a definition for beauty, and this is not it.

A Texas sunset

It's brown here in West Texas. For much of the year the ground is brown, the trees are brown and the grass is brown. It can be easy to get lost in the brown and even I sometimes forget how beautiful this land is. When dirt and dust blow in from the west, turning the sky a murky brown, I forget that green exists.

But right now it's green and beautiful and home.

I have come to love Texas in the fifteen years that I have lived here. Not in a patriotic, "we can secede whenever we want" way. Rather, I have come to love the wide open spaces and the wind-blown plains. Though the fierce wind can whip the dirt into the air and wrap my hair across my face, it carries with it a voice. When I close my eyes and listen to the wind gust through mesquite branches and over the grass, I hear my name echoed in the breeze. I feel at peace and content.

"I hear the wind across the plain, a sound so strong that calls my name. It's wild like the river; it's warm like the sun. It is here, this is where I belong." ~ Bryan Adams 

I want others to see this land through my eyes. For I believe it is a scenic place, full of wonder and beauty. There is beauty in West Texas; it's just hidden amongst the mesquite trees.

Riding alongside mesquite trees