I snapped these Taos Tulips this morning, using my fancy optical zoom lens. Huh. I didn't think it would work so well. Almost like a snuck right up on that bee. I've been hearing a lot about bees lately. The validity of the Einstein quote is still up in the air, but either way, bees are important in the big picture, so we need to be nice to them. No killing bees this summer, OK? Let's all plant a lot of nice flowers for them, and make sure there's water around so they stay and make honey and survive and pollinate stuff. Yes, stuff.

Back in Seattle, we lived in an urban jungle, with a neighbor who kept bees. We had a family of raccoons who came tapping on the back door every evening, so we fed them... duh. The five babies were so cute we wanted to keep them around. We bought a small wading pool for them to drink from and wash their food. It was great for the mom, but the babies couldn't reach over the side. So we built a little staircase with bricks for them. One problem solved, but we started noticing a lot of the neighbor's bees drowning in the pool. So... we extended the bricks down to the inside of the pool, and set a few more in the water, so they just stuck out over the surface. The bricks absorbed the water, and the bees had all these little islands to land on and drink from.

Maybe all that is kind of extreme for you, but a pie pan and a rock can make a really nice zen water feature on your deck. Besides, when the bees are happy, they aren't stinging. Lessons to be learned everywhere...

So, Happy May Day. Go hang out with Nature and see what she says.