Enjoying from Afar

ANY

I mentioned before that the bumble bees own my yard right now. I keep hearing the sad news of bee populations dwindling in other parts of the country (even here in Portland) but every year our yard seems to have more and more of them. That's a good thing (for us) but this year, their hive is somewhere a few yards down so they flock to these rhodie blooms and zip back across the yard (dozens of them, every few seconds) full-speed at head-height. There must be close to a hundred of them on this shrub at a time and their collective buzzing is the first thing you hear when you open the back door, and sometimes you don't need to even open the door to hear it. I know that part of the reason these flowers look so amazing is because of the bees' busywork. I only wish I could enjoy the blooms more, instead of counting the days until they fade and fall.

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