Not about fitba

Sometimes I wonder what I'd be like if it weren't for working on books at work all the time. Did I have any idea there were so many types of owls--and woodpeckers--around before The Owl and the Woodpecker spent so much time on my desk? One doubts. And it was City Goats that provoked my ongoing obsession wtih goats though possibly my love of chevre predates my meeting Snowflake, Eloise, and--oh yes--Jennie Grant. Next up it was The Front Yard Forager, a book on eating weeds, and I now know that it's catsear, not dandelion, that I'm cutting down in my dried-up front yard these days and, by gosh, I could be making a succulent meal rather than filling the yard waste container. (It still ended up in the yard waste but the fennel cookie recipe I got from that book is the best.)

More recently I've been working on a book about cycling as a regular mode of transportation (Urban Cycing) and last weekend Scott and I rode our bikes all over West Seattle in the record-setting heat to look at gardens. It's not like I haven't owned my bike since the mid-1990s but I'm more aware of its needs since I've been working on this particular book--and I'm likely to exclaim, "Isn't biking just the best!" at regular intervals. Now I'm just starting on a book about bees--mason bees and leafcutters--and, well, I'm really wanting to know if the extremely methodical bee I observed today on the Alba lavender was a leafcutter. I took a number of photos, of course, and I've sent a couple to What's that Bug? because, of course, I'm not one to resist such a website. Nor the opportunity to share a few photos here, on the off-chance that a melittologist drops by blahdeblahblah.

Seriously, this little bee was darned cute, washing his little face or perhaps shoveling pollen someplace or other. There were any number of bumblebees and a honeybee or two also working the lavender but they all jumped from one stalk to the next while this little fellow stuck to the same one for a good ten minutes. I like a bee what's thorough.

 I also like the results of hardworking pollinators:

though I'm not sure how much they're involved in carrots. I guess carrots have to set seeds but that doesn't actually require pollination, does it? Regardless, it was a mammoth (and fine tasting) carrot. And also darned fine cucumber and teeny tomatoes.

Speaking of photogenic pollinators, here are a few more:

I had no idea there were so many types of bumblebees until I started trying to identify bees.

I believe this is the common honey bee. On the fennel I planted because while fennel can be a weed, it can also be planted.

It's a bird *and* a pollinator!

 

 

Not so much a pollinator, I don't think, but just look at that adorable hair.