Surreal

A flower for these times. May I present the White-veined Pipevine (Aristolochia fimbriata), which almost could be classified as a "splurge" if I hadn't grown it from seed. Yeah, not much money, but quite a bit of on-going attention - it took a full year to get them to a reasonable size. And then to bloom.

Even though these little plants are native to Brazil, they can serve as hosts for the Pipevine swallowtail butterfly (Battus philenor). Although you would probably need an entire field of them to satisfy a crowd of hungry caterpillars.

Payoff

Yellow-faced Bumblebee

She's back! For at least 12 years, I haven't seen, smelled or heard a single bumblebee in the yard. Other varieties of bees, yes, but nary a bumbler.

In the past few years though, I've been working my little trowel to the bone, adding pollinator-friendly plants and always hoping that some of my new neighbors would be in the bumblebee family. And credit where credit is due - at the same time that I was adding new and enticing food sources, my neighbor ripped out a "food desert" of juniper bushes and replaced them with California natives. Her choices have also certainly helped in this effort.

Now I am very aware that there are other, seemingly bigger health and social issues at play right now. I am simply trying to find a small bit of solace where I can, even if she only weighs less than a tenth of a gram. As Thor Hanson points out in his book, Buzz: the Nature and Necessity of Bees, the world can live without humans; unfortunately, it will have a very hard time without bees.