The First Bee

I went out to see what's blooming out front and found the first bee I've seen this year on the second dandelion.  I read that dandelions are important to bees because they're some of the first nectar-bearing flowers to bloom in the spring so the bees need them for food.  That's my reason for not spraying them. The dandelions, I mean.

Surrounding the dandelion with the bee is a sea of purple grape hyacinths.  They don't smell but they sure look like little bunches of grapes, don't they?  And they spread.  A few of them have ventured out into the lawn so I wait until the last minute to mow because I don't want to mow the pretty little purple flowers.  What if the bees need them too?

I went to the grocery this afternoon for Investment Cooking supplies.  Big mistake.  I don't know why it never occurred to me that everybody would be at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.  They had a half-dozen check lines open today when during the week you're lucky if two are open.  *sigh*  I managed to dodge people and kept my mask on snugly and got almost everything on my list.  Everything except the golden mushroom soup I need to make the Salisbury Steak so once I had all the perishables put away I went to a different grocery that had the soup and bought three of them so next time I'll have it just in case it's out at Meijer, which is my preferred one-stop shop.

The Juncos are still here.  I keep hoping not to see them which will mean they've headed back up to the Arctic where they nest in the summer.  Having them gone means it's really getting to be Spring to me.

 

The Downy Woodpecker came to the suet this afternoon and stayed on the other side of the feeder so all I got was his tail.  He bobbed his head up a few times so that I saw the red stripe behind his head but mostly I just saw his tail.

In knitting news, I've got my knitting guild homework done for next Thursday night.  We're having a program to learn how to knit stripes in a hat without a jog where the color changes so I've knitted the brim and a couple rows so that I can change to the second color and practice changing colors later in the week.  I learn better by doing that just hearing and seeing.  Oh, and the cool thing is that the pattern is a free one from a yarn shop in Bozeman, Montana that I've visited a few times.

I worked on the Purples Sock too.  This yarn is thinner than the previous sock yarn I used so it's going slower.  But I'm not in a hurry so I can knit a few rounds and keep going to see the color changes  which is the lure of this kind of yarn.

Today I took the tosses to the Goodwill but first I took yesterday's jewelry box toss to my friend AP because she wears clip earrings so she'll pick through and then donate what she doesn't want.  A perfect plan.

The prompt today asked me to list everything I can do with a cardboard box.  Hmm, store things, ship things, carry things, use it for a hiding place (if it's big enough), make a playhouse for kids or cats, and use it for part of a craft project.  That's all I've got.

I spent a lot of the morning moving files from the old laptop to the new one.  I think I might have it pretty well taken care of.  I've got a few more things to work out and a couple things to download but I'm mostly happy with it.

--Barbara