Yep it is, today we commemorate the visitation of the three wise men to Jesus (in a manger). It's officially the end of Christmas celebration here, and so let me tell you, HAPPY THREE KINGS! I just learned from Wikipedia, by the way, that traditionally, Filipino children leave their shoes out so the 3 kings would leave some treats like candy or money inside, kinda similar to Santa's stockings. But I was surprised. We never observed it like that. We only go to the church and hear mass, the church would usually have something for the kids after the mass, like earlier, they were giving out apples. I was with my sister Pipay and my niece Rome, but we didn't bother to get an apple. It's not a popular fruit in our household and we're still feasting on the ones we bought for new year. But it's nice to have that kind of thing after the mass.
Meanwhile, I'm having a different kind of epiphany. I think I'm starting to figure things out now. I think I'm finally getting a lead how to make most of my life. I'm starting to have plans and get directions for my future. I'm working on it now. I don't want to disclose it yet, I have this attitude of keeping things secret until they succeed, one thing I know is, this year is gonna be different.
And there's something I (re)discovered this morning. There's a honey bee colony in our house! A honey vendor came in and told us that he ran into my sister and he was told we've got honey bees. He bargained to harvest it for us then we can split the honey. It was inside the ceiling of our front porch, it's really high so it's not really a threat. Occasionally, I'd see a bee flying around in our garden, I never really thought there's a whole colony nesting somewhere. But it's a lot, not enough to make profit but just right for our consumption. I love using honey on my tea.
I vaguely remember an episode in my childhood when my mom had a bee colony in our home exterminated. At the time, it really felt like some kind of threat, I've heard cases from my class where a bee sting caused a fever. So my mom was being careful. But earlier, I saw how the vendor dealt with the colony to get the honeycomb. He just puffed a smoke (with a cigarette) to calm the bees, and wallah, he got the package! I felt sorry for some bees who clearly sticked and died during the process.
He did split the honeycombs and he said we can expect another batch of honeycombs and he can harvest for us every 3 months. Ivy and I extracted and filtered the honey afterwards, it's not as fun as we thought it would be. We got a jar's worth of honey, probably around 250 ml. Like I said, nothing close to turning it into profit, but it's nice to know that we could get it for free. Yay!
