Fib and the Fritters
Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Fib the Lion and I’m not lying about anything I mentioned before. See, I LOVE this time of the year. The weather isn’t too hot or cold. When you have a fur coat like me, these times are way better than the hot summer or the cold winter. When it’s chilly in the morning, I drink my hot cider. When it’s warm in the afternoon, I drink my frozen cider. Throughout the day and especially in the middle of the night, I drink regular cider.
You might think I drink too much cider. Well, I disagree. In fact, if it weren’t for me, the orchard I work at wouldn’t even have cider to sell to the customers. Basically, I discovered cider and believe I should have the right to drink as much as I want because of that. Okay, maybe I didn’t discover cider, but I did figure out the best recipe for making it and the owners use it to satisfy customers. That’s a story for another day.
If you’re wondering why a lion like me works at an apple orchard, I’ll explain. Years ago, I wandered into Michigan and lived near a farm that had cows. When I got hungry, I would hunt like lions do. The problem was that I was hunting on this farmer’s land a little too much.
Early one morning, we met by his new electric fence he put around his property to keep the animals in and me out. I knew I was nibbling too much, but I was shocked that he put up a fence like that u to keep me away. Obviously, we were about to have a big problem, but he offered me an apple. Well, he didn’t really offer it to me because he didn’t see me lurking. And, I didn’t see the apple in his hand when he opened his mouth to take a bite out of it. I did see his teeth, and the rules of the wild clearly say I’m allowed to show my teeth in response. So, I roared and showed my teeth. He dropped the apple and stepped away. Lucky for me, it rolled on my side of the fence and I started licking it. I took a bite of it and it was tasty.
Instantly, the farmer turned and ran away. I was sure I had scared him off. Then, he came back with a bag of apples and tossed them to me. I ate and ate and was happily full. I mean, it wasn’t what I usually eat, but it was better than nothing.
My first job at the apple orchard was to keep an eye on it at night. I guess I wasn’t the only animal that enjoyed eating apples, so the farmer wanted me to be there to scare off other animals. I’m a lion, so that’s not a problem for me. The problem for me was that I was paid in apples and my appetite was costing the farmer a little more than he planned. I guess I was eating more apples than the other animals he hired me to keep away. So, I ended up working during the day.
My days working at the apple orchard required me to keep an eye on the apple fritters. Yes, the APPLE FRITTERS. While most apple orchards serve good doughnuts with cinnamon and sugar, my orchard served the best apple fritters on Earth. They looked sweet, buttery, apple-filled, and delicious! People loved them and we would sell out quickly. I’d never had one, but I agreed to work for unlimited cider, one apple fritter in the morning, and any leftover apple fritters at the end of the day.
The orchard’s reason for having me work during the day was that bees loved the apple fritters more than they enjoyed the cider and apples. The bees would often sting customers who would reach for the apple fritters. Customers getting stung by the bees could lead to serious danger and stop customers from coming to the orchard. A more important problem for me was that bees made me nervous. While their stingers probably wouldn’t make it past most of my fur, I wasn’t sure if I was allergic to them and didn’t want to find out the hard way.
The first time I protected the apple fritters, the customers seemed to be more scared of me than the bees. I guess bees were getting more love. That day, nobody bought any apple fritters. That night, I ended up eating all of the apple fritters. THEY WERE AMAZING! They were also attracting bees to me while I was resting after being full.
One bee came by and landed on one of my whiskers. I was about to swat it away, but four more bees landed on my paws and started eating the crumbs from the fritters. The bee from my whisker started going toward my nose and I sneezed. Instantly, crumbs were everywhere. Instead of the bees getting mad at me and trying to sting me, they went to where the crumbs landed and ate the rest of them. Then, they left.
The next day, before work started, I was given my apple fritter. As soon as I nibbled, the bees were swarming me. At first I wanted to run, but I remembered what happened the night before. Instead of leaving, I laid down and took another nibble. The bees were flying and going for the crumbs that were dropping. I let them have them. I took another bite and they did the same thing. Before long, I would take a bite and leave my mouth open. The bees would take the sweet crumbs off my teeth and clean them for me. I guess that was like what the buffalos and birds did with insects while out in the wild.
Once the farmer realized that the bees were hanging out with me and not bothering the customers, I was given a raise. I went from one fritter to four fritters in the morning! That solved the bee problem for the orchard. The problem for me was that there were never any leftover fritters at the end of the day. That’s a story for another day.