An uninvited guest

To add to the beauty of the sanctuary of our church on Easter morning, many members order potted plants to place around the altar. This year we purchased a tulip, a lily, and, my husband's favorite, a hydrangea. We carried them home after church, but had to set them outside on our picnic table because they were causing our daughter to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze! After our family left, Bob brought all three plants into the house and set them on the breakfast table.

That's where they were this morning when I set my bowl of cereal on the table and leaned over to take a closer look at the hydrangea before sitting down to eat. I was more than a little surprised to find myself face-to-face with a very large bumblebee, the first one I have seen this season. We really don't know if it had been on the flower when we brought it home from church or if it landed there while the plant sat on our picnic table. Either way, it was quickly banished from the breakfast table back to the picnic table, but not before I grabbed my camera and took a few blips.

After breakfast, I carried my camera outside for another photo opp with "our" bee, which was still lounging on the hydrangea blossom, looking very lethargic. It sat there sleepily as I took blip after blip, practicing with the buttons and dials on my new camera. Eventually I moved the plant into the sun, where the bee perked up and tried to fly, landing only a few feet away on the grass. Fearful that Gulliver might discover him on the ground, I found a stick and moved him back to the plant, where the sun revived him. When we brought the plants in tonight, our uninvited guest was gone.

Today was a beautiful day with sunshine and a high temperature of 71 degrees. Colder weather is predicted for the end of the week, so I am trying to make the most of these great days for blipping. Unfortunately, it takes away my time for commenting on your wonderful blips, but I'll catch up when it turns cold.

larger