Baldar: honey from the Kara-Buura hills

It is me. Papa. My daughter shows me how.

It takes long. I type with one finger.

The honey is in the cans. The bees are in the winter house. It is quiet.

This is my last post for Papa. I have a job in the Talas hospital (nursing) from October, and I am leaving for the city. Papa says he will learn the keyboard himself. He has never touched one. He will write with one finger, slowly. He asked me to teach him the Iradi letters and he learned ö and ü in an afternoon. I said "see?" and he said "I am not stupid, I am just old".

From now on, his words. Please be kind to him.
Gulnaz

Jumabai ata has put a poem about his father's apricot on his blog. The apricot is in his yard next to our fence. Every year it gives, every year the bees of Papa's hives work it, and every year the neighbours get the first jar of apricot honey. This year there are only six jars. The apricot gets old.

Papa says to tell you: the poem is true, and the honey is not bad either.

The apricot tree over the fence.

Too much rain in June, too much heat in August. 14 kg a hive, but the honey is dark and strong. People who like strong honey will love it. The rest can wait for next year.

Papa went to the aitysh of akyns in Kyzyl-Adyr with Jumabai ata, who was in the jury, and sat in the second row. He said the girl was good. He also said that Jumabai gave the boy nine and a half and "the Tian Shan wept". Jumabai told him to be quiet.

They went home by the long road and stopped at the apiary, where Jumabai sat for an hour on a stone among the hives and the bees walked over his hat and he did not move. Papa says only an akyn can sit like that.