Sweet Summer Child

[smokingboot]

I had left some old clean kitty litter trays out the back because I intended to put them in the garage but forgot. Rain had come and filled them, and in one was a drowned bee. When I saw her twitching faintly I scooped her out and tried to coax her with some sugar water, but she wasn't interested. She preferred to sit on my hand among the clover flowers in the heat of the day, and I got to see close up that she was a red tailed bumblebee, cleaning herself thoroughly while her matted fluff and dripping wings dried in the sunshine. Her pollen baskets were drenched flat along her legs, but eh, work lost can be replaced. The sun beat down on us and I was happy. She crawled up my arm towards my elbow, and arrived at the rolled up cuffs of my sleeves. Suddenly the bee was slow, slower, stopped.

Oh no, I thought, it's been too much, she's - then she took off, bright and buzzing into the sky, all that beaming blue. And she flew just fine.

Just goes to show that one bee can make a great day.

But yes, those trays are in the garage now.