Wednesday, April 20, 2005

digbees!!! they're so cute!!!

well, I've got to say the internet is pretty fabulous. Who needs Encylopedia Brittanicas anymore? No more grocery store encyclopedia gift sets - like they had in the 60s and 70s. . strange, I know, but they sold them that way! No more encyclopedia salespeople pounding the pavement. No more gilt-edged pages and embossed fake leather hard-covered volumes that took up so much precious space! Now we have computers! the world is in our homes. . how wonderfully frightening!! These days when anyone says that they wonder about something, i always say: "Look it up online". When I want a recipe, or help with something that didn't turn out - like the FLOP of a genoise sponge cake that I made for a special lemon mousse cake. . i went online to http://www.baking911.com and that's only 1 piddly example of how much is at our fingertips!!!

So anyway, yeah, today I was making a salad and Rob was looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. "Look! those bees are back again." sez Rob . I took a look. . sure enough the bees were back but these are no ordinary bees - they always come out of our grass! If you look, you will see all kinds of little, bee-sized holes in the lawn. . with little, baby bees hovering over the new tufts of grass. So, Rob's wondering out loud just what kinda bees are these? Guess what i said? "Look it up online" and he did!!!

These are 'digger bees' aka "native bees" or 'sand bees'. They hatch individually and burrow their way out. http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/nativebee.html COOL! I've always wondered what these ankle buzzers were!!! (they really do buzz around your ankles for a few days) we've only had them appear every flippin' spring and we've never known if they really were bees or what the heck was going on?! They don't seem to bother anyone. . I often worry about letting Maggie out in 'bee hatching time'. . but she's never been stung and her pooping grounds are at the back of the yard and the bee zone is at the front of the yard, so phew!!! Hey! these homely bees are among the most prolific pollinators around! yay for them! in the bee world, i'd say they'd never win any beauty*I could do a bee pun with that word, but i'm not gonna touch it!* contests. The flashy, stylin' little yellow and black ones would get all the glory, but which is more important? to look good or to 'bee' *couldn't resist that one!* good?! ha ha ha ha ha !!! yes, its gettin' late i apologize sincerely.

the internet and digger bees. . . who'd think they go together? but in my mind everything goes together, people!!! sleep tight! i'm headin' up the wooden hill early. . its only 12:40 a.m.!!!

1 comment:

kathryn said...

yeah, the bees have been here since you were little! chipmunks are destructive little things, aren't they? they've chewed right through the floor of our shed! No, the lemon mousse cake was the beautiful one that you liked with the berries on top, etc. . the lemon tart was that SOUR THING! you're right! that WAS hilarious! I got that recipe from Christine Cushing's guest who's the pastry chef at a Toronto restaurant aptly called "Lemon Meringue"!!! Remember we said that she probably sabotaged the online recipe so that people wouldn't be able to re-create her secret recipe!! the crust was delicious though!