Melinda Moore, 32, and Steve Wernett, 29,...
Melinda Moore, 32, and Steve Wernett, 29, of Orange buzz around differently than most.
For instance, when they married nine years ago, they decided against wedding rings. Instead, she wears a necklace with an infinity heart. He wears the heart as an earring.
Now she’s playing basketball in a park league against men.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Moore, a former Cal State Fullerton psychology major just shy of graduating. “Every once in a while a guy shoves me around to make a point. That’s his problem.”
But together, they have a common goal: to succeed in their 800-hive beekeeping business, called Wer-Mor n’ Honey!
However, she said: “We don’t plan to be big commercial beekeepers. We want to collect the honey without hiring anyone. We want to do the work ourselves.”
She is well read and able to discuss the problems of the world as easily as she talks about bees, which she learned about from her husband, who started with a hive bought from a Sears catalogue 12 years ago.
It’s their way of being independent, “to be our own bosses,” Moore said. “We sacrifice and work hard, but we’re out with nature every day and that’s satisfying.”
They likened their life to that of a bee. “In the bee structure,” she said, “there is no room for laziness, and they work together for the survival of the hive. Bees go to work with a purpose.”
Moore said that “a lot of people today who are depressed and unhappy don’t have a purpose and feel disconnected,” but “I have a connection, and I understand why I was put on earth.”
Comfortable around bees, Moore and Wernett sometimes work without protective garb. “We’ve both been (stung) but not that often, and that’s no big deal,” Moore said.
But Wernett admitted that he has “been known to run a few times, because sometimes you just have to stand and take the sting.” He credits his knowledge about bees to the late Keith Mobley, well-known Orange County beekeeper.
An active basketball player and surfer, Wernett is aware of the stiff competition from other beekeepers in Orange County, especially this year, which has been unkind to beekeepers because of the lack of rainfall and subsequent lack of pollen.
To help themselves along during the downturn, they are selling honey from a stand Thursdays at the Orange County Fairgrounds farmers market.
“That keeps us outdoors too,” Moore said.
“I know you think I’m a dummy, but I’m not,” writes Paula Anderson, 40, of Irvine, as if her lifelike creations were talking.
Anderson makes fully clothed Santa Clauses, little old ladies and other figures called “Paula’s People” for holidays and for house- and car-sitting. Her mother and father, sister and two teen-age children form her work crew.
“The figures are all lovable and cuddly,” she said, noting a couple of Santa Clauses are already in place in a Palm Springs mall and in a Laguna Beach antique shop.
She said her non-holiday creations are great for house- and car-sitting, pointing out that no one would want to burglarize a house or steal a car with a life-size person in it. The figures sell for $400 and up.
Her poetic writing also includes a tip: “Running late on the freeway can drive you insane. Remember it takes two for the car-pool lane.”
Cal State Fullerton geography professors Robert A. Young and William J. Lloyd have answers to the question, “Could the City of Needles ever become more than just a way station for tourists headed elsewhere?”
They produced a 98-page report, funded by a state grant, that described the economy and future of the isolated desert community of Needles--known for being off the beaten track--and concluded that the city of 4,800 permanent residents has “potential.”
What would be helpful, they imagined, would be a rebirth of the Santa Fe railroad depot there as a possible magnet to tourists, with upscale dining, dancing and lodging.
But they noted that the city would have to do something about its reputation as being a place “where (tourists) rarely stay overnight, unless their cars break down.”
Acknowledgments--Mike Nakauchi, 16, of Westminster, repeated as winner of the Junior Men’s National Baton Championship held at the University of Notre Dame. He also placed first in the two-baton competition. He is the star twirler for the La Quinta High School Aztecs marching band.
