Busy Bee

Day 330: My maternal grandmother was a schoolteacher and a thoroughly Christian woman in the old sense of the word. She doted on didactic poems and other Victorian-era means of illustrating life lessons, and one which she quoted to me often was Isaac Watts' "Against Idleness and Mischief." If you don't recognize the title, it's no wonder, although you undoubtedly will have heard it in some form, opening with "How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour / And gather honey all the day from every opening flower." It concludes with "For Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do." She also employed a second take on the ending when she was trying to impart the patience required for needlework to me when I was only three: "Idle hands are the devil's playground." So firmly did she instill the lesson in my youthful psyche that today, I cannot sit down for longer than five minutes without some project in my hands. People wonder how I find time for needlework. I wonder how they can waste it in front of a television set.

Garden Colour

Day 163: One of these things is not like the others, much to my dismay, and it heralds the approach of lawn-mowing season, something I tend to forget about over the winter months. It always takes me by surprise. Some morning, I'll look out the window and the grass (that coarse, sharp-bladed species which as kids, we stretched between our thumbs to make a whistle) will have sprung up to half the height of the bird-feeder poles. I don't have "lawn." I have a few blades of thin green stuff sticking up through moss, hawkweed, and assorted other unpleasantness. The sharp stuff grows in clumps where the poor soil contains any small amount of organic matter. It is astonishingly resistant to treatment, even (gods forbid!) Round-up. Naturalist that I am, when lawn-mowing season begins, there are two alternatives which spring to mind: a flame-thrower, or perhaps two or three acre-inches of green asphalt. What idiot decided houses should be surrounded by lawn?

How Doth The Little Busy Bee

Day 302: I was too close for someone who is seriously allergic to their stings, but the Honey Bees had more important things on their minds than an interloper with a camera. Nevertheless, I get a little nervous when I step out on the back porch and these critters are working the sedum over. Still, with the Honey Bee population in decline, it makes me glad to see them in numbers and at their industry.

Years ago, my next-door neighbor had a hive in one of his exterior house walls. If you stood at a safe distance, you could see hundreds of them flying in and out, entering through a narrow gap between the boards under the eaves. He advised me to stay clear: "They get mad sometimes when I mow." I don't know that he ever destroyed the hive, so it's possible that my abundant population of bees comes from his house. In any event, if he ever tears that wall down, I want to be around for the honey.

Making More Work

Day 183: I had to go to town today and wanted to pick up some more bark mulch for the garden, but wound up with a little extra time on my hands before an appointment. What happened next was as certain as death and taxes: I came out of the garden store with a full cart. My acquisitions included two more Blue Star Junipers, two "Furzey" Heathers, a Vinca minor, and two sedums and a stonecrop (a taller plant) which will be the centerpiece of the strawberry jar, presently under conversion to a succulent garden. This phenomenon is known as "making more work for myself," something I do all too frequently when planting season rolls around. With snow sprinkled on the hills above the house like powdered sugar on gingerbread, I successfully resisted the temptations offered by zonal geraniums and calibrachoa. Neither is frost-hardy. However, I did fall for the lure of a wrought-iron trellis which barely fit in my car.