The Hill Farm Honey – Part 2: Heather Harvest
Mature & Silver·EN·2 min read·Published 2026-11-07, updated 2026-11-07·Part 2 of 2
The last Saturday of the season, they spun the honey.
The extraction shed hummed with the whirr of the steel drum. Honey ran thick and dark from the spout, a river of amber. The air smelled of wax and warm heather. Dorothy, in a stained apron, filled jar after jar with Ray's careful help, and sticky laughter filled the shed.
"You've done well," said Ray.
"I've done nothing."
"You've done all the labels."
"They're very nice labels."
"They say 'Margaret's Reserve.'"
"She deserved it."
By dusk, they had filled two hundred jars. They carried a chair each out onto the porch and sat side by side, watching the moor blaze in the low sun. Swallows skimmed the fields. In the distance, a curlew called, thin and wild.
Ray handed her a spoon and a jar. "The first of the year."
She tasted it. It was dark, smoky, a little bitter and astonishingly sweet. Tears pricked her eyes.
"It's like the moor," she said.
"Aye."
"It's like you."
He went the colour of the heather. "I'm not sweet."
"You're exactly sweet. You just hide it under a cap."
They sat in silence a while, the honey glowing in the jar between them. A single bee wandered across the porch rail and flew off.
"Can I ask you something?" said Dorothy.
"Yes."
"May I kiss you, Ray?"
"Yes," he said, very softly. "And if you say stop, you must come back for the whole of next summer."
"That's the best deal I've been offered in years."
She kissed him, gently, her hand against his weathered cheek. He kissed her back with slow, shy care, tasting of honey and tea. His big hand rose to cover hers. The sun slipped behind the hill, and the first stars appeared above the glowing moor.
When they parted, both of them were smiling.
"Green?" he asked.
"Green," said Dorothy. "Very green."
The jars of Margaret's Reserve sell out each August. On the label, in small neat writing: Made by two people, and sixty rude bees.
More mature romance stories: Autumn in Quebec · The Quilting Circle · The Silver Ballroom
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