the earth heals us

Earth Day 2020

A native bee visits a stem of prairie blazing star
in the native plant garden my husband and I created
as an oasis for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.

~Robin Wall Kimmerer

Something of the marvelous

In all things of nature
there is something of the marvelous.

~Aristotle, (384 – 322 BC)

because it is not invoiced

Not a single bee has ever sent you an invoice.
And that is part of the problem –
because most of what comes to us from nature is free,
because it is not invoiced,
because it is not priced,
because it is not traded in markets,
we tend to ignore it.

~Pavan Sukhdev

One pollinator, rescued.

This morning, I happened to glance out my kitchen window, which looks out over a flowerbed that runs along our front walkway. In this flowerbed is a bird bath we keep as a little oasis for our resident birds. Because of continual local rainstorms, we haven’t filled our bird bath once this month. In fact, the latest cloudburst filled it to its absolute brim.

When I glanced outside to the bird bath below, I detected rapid motion in the water. At first I thought a dragonfly had fallen in. Peering closer, I saw that it was a bumblebee, flailing for its life. Still in my pajamas, I raced outside, reached for a twig, and fished the drowning bumblebee out of the water. I gently set the poor creature down on an unfurling blossom in my echinacea patch.

The bumblebee crawled a fraction of an inch, then fell into a tiny heap of exhaustion. I watched it closely for any sign of recovery. After a minute or two, it stretched its legs and began to fan its wings. Satisfied I had done all I could, I returned indoors.

Twenty minutes later or so, and, yes, still in my pajamas, I went back outside to check on my little patient. My heart took wing when I saw that the bumblebee had flown away.

One pollinator, rescued. Today is off to a great start.

The hum of bees

The hum of bees
is the voice
of the garden.

~Elizabeth Lawrence, Gardener, Landscape Architect, (1904 – 1985)