My lavender is in full bloom with lots of pollinators. This bumblebee and skipper are super cute 🙂
in seeking sweetness
you find each little blossom
lavender lovers
~ Raven Ariana Simons ©2017
Bright Bee and Butterfly blessings, Namu Amida Butsu, Namaste
~ Raven
This morning was beautiful. It got hot, though not bad, later in the afternoon. I was able to get the little native bee that protects the milkweed. These are a megachiles (leafcutting) type of bee and chase other insects away as well as grapple with honeybees to try and drive them off of their beloved milkweed. The skipper is a different type than yesterday’s.
hi, little skipper
do you love scabiosa,
the purple flower?
~ Raven Ariana Simons ©2017
Bright Bee and Butterfly Blessings, Namaste, Namu Amida Butsu
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
~ Raven
Today has been sunny and pleasant. Today I have a native bee (with an ant looking on), a milkweed bug, and a skipper. I still await the appearance of my beloved milkweed beetles.
little insect friends
I’m curious about you
where you come and go
~ Raven Ariana Simons ©2017
look who’s visiting
bees, beetles, and butterflies
it’s a sunny day
~ Raven Ariana Simons ©2017
Bright Butterfly and Bee Blessings, Namaste, Namu Amida Butsu
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
~ Raven
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
~ Apple, Inc.
Flashback Thursday, October 4, 2012 – This is my pick photo and it stars this sparkly pink begonia. I love how the late afternoon light shining through the petals have this lovely sparkling effect.
Flashback Friday, October 4, 2013 – This is my pick photo for today and it stars a cute little bird in Russian Olive 🙂
Saturday, October 4, 2014 – Today was lovely and sunny and I was blessed to see a little skipper. There have been very few butterflies or moths this year and I’m happy that I have a few stalks of lavender that re-bloomed late after a trim that seemed to draw the attention of this lone skipper. Today is day 4 of the month long poetry challenge.
“pretty blue sky day
almost like gentle summer…
soon there will be snow”
~ Raven Ariana Simons
“sunbeams and skippers…
on this lovely day it seems
this one steers the world”
~ Raven Ariana Simons
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
Beautiful Butterfly Blessings and Namaste ~ Raven
“Even an ordinary broken chord is made to disclose rare beauties; we are reminded of the fairies’ hazelnuts in which diamonds were concealed but you could break the shell only if your hands were blessed.”
~ Neville Cardus (Of Rachmaninoff’s playing; Manchester Guardian (1939) )
Flashback Wednesday, September 19, 2012 – This is my pick photo for today and stars this beautiful sunflower. I really love the autumnal colors in this one.
Flashback Thursday, September 19, 2013 – This is my pick photo for today and it stars a dragonfly eating a moth.
Friday, September 19, 2014 – The hazel nuts are ripe and most have fallen from the tree. The apples are also ripe and some of those have fallen, too.
Song Of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
~ W. B. Yeats
“Who tends the golden
bough and the fruit for Wild Ones?
Folk live in a mound.”
~ Raven Ariana Simons
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
Bright Bee Blessings and Namaste ~ Raven
Flashback Wednesday, August 15, 2012 – Here are all 3 blooms open on my datura. Guessing by the blossom stage development on the rest this will be the most blooms I have open at one time this year and in honor I am choosing it as my pick photo for today.
Flashback Thursday, August 15, 2013 – This is my pick photo for today and it stars a wasp on one of my front yard sunflowers.
Friday, August 15, 2014 – When a I look around my yard and world I feel so much gratitude for the other beings that share it with me. This is what gives my life richness and meaning. I can’t help but worry when I look and see blind destruction all around me as people spray poisons on their lawns and I can feel the trees falling in the rainforest. Some become angry if I lecture them too much on the poisoning of the earth. At this time I can only take refuge in my own yard and be so so grateful that I have insects, birds, and other creatures here.
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”
~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“When a creature is exposed to violence, it will tend to adapt to that disturbance, so that when the violence ceases or the creature is allowed its freedom, the healthy instinct to flee is hugely diminished, and the creature stays put instead.”
~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“The most important thing is to hold on, hold out, for your creative life, for your solitude, for your time to be and do, for your very life.”
~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
Bright Bee Blessings and Namaste ~ Raven
Flashback Monday, August 6, 2012 – This is my pick photo for today and stars a little hummingbird visiting my neighbors’ penstemmon. The late afternoon light was just right to show off the colors of the hummer. Did you know that the colors in a hummingbird’s feathers is not caused by pigment? They are actually caused by the way the light refracts off of the cells of the feathers. I learned this recently watching a PBS Nature documentary.
Flashback Tuesday, August 6, 2013 – This is my pick photo and it stars a skipper butterfly on a zinnia I bought at the local Wasatch Community Garden plant sale last May.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 – Today I saw a little drama unfold in the sunflower kingdom when a couple of bumblebees were on one sunflower. One rested as the other fed until the feeding one decided to run off the one resting. The first photo shows all is well and another little native bee is coming in. The next sequence shows the one bumblebee running off the other.
Now we have a little skipper in the buddleia.
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
~ John Muir
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
~ John Muir
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
Namaste and Bright Bee Blessings ~ Raven
Flashback Thursday, July 5, 2012 – If you look closely at the big rain droplet ready to fall from this trumpet vine flower you can see trumpet vine leaves upside down.
Flashback Friday, July 5, 2013 – This is my pick photo for today and it stars a very cute shot of a red milkweed beetle. I’m happy to be able to provide habitat and have a population of this neat insect that lives entirely on milkweed 🙂 I’m also happy that my yard is providing valuable habitat for other insects (rare elsewhere) and has never been sprayed with poisons since we’ve lived here (now 22 years). It is amazing how much life our little yard hosts! We hope others will get on the bandwagon before it is too late!
Saturday, July 5, 2014 – Here are some of the community members in the apiary, including one of the ladies. You might notice that the flower fly (aka hover fly) looks like a bee. It is common to see photos of flower flies in article about honeybees. This can be a real pet peeve of entomologists and beekeepers. Flower flies and all these pollinators are awesome 🙂
“I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.”
~ Richard Bach
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
~ Richard Bach
Our hearts give thanks for the Grace in the Universe!
Bright Bee Blessings and Namaste ~ Raven
Grace and Mystery 