Good Writers Should Never Die: Sue Hubbell

Writers should live forever.

That's all there is to it.

I just found out today that Sue Hubbell died on October 17, 2018. As with other cases where authors have died, this is a selfish grief: I didn't know Sue Hubbell, I knew her work, and I wanted more of it.

She, or at least her writing self, is what I want to be when I grow up: Observant, endlessly curious, forever asking questions, getting people to show her behind the scenes and sharing what she found. She has a persistent and quiet sense of wonder about the natural world, and she shares it with everyone.

A Country Year: Living the Questions, Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugsm Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys into the Time Before Bones and especially Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes are some of my favorite books.

And, yes, in some ways she is living forever, thus the present-tense when I talk of her as a writer--her books are available and will, hopefully, remain so. But, I've been looking forward to her next set of questions, her next exploration, and now...there won't be any more.

Busy Bees

Bees buzzing at the Shipley Nature Center.

Christmas Flower

Aloe on the beach in December.

Bees: A link or two

I'm still working on the whole bee vs. wasp thing. The couple of articles I've read so far say pretty much what I thought: Bees are stubby, wasps are not. This, of course, doesn't account for the sweat bee. So I'm looking.

In the meantime, here's a neat page on Types of Bees, found via bugguide's link section, which I'm still learning to navigate, and here's a nice, two-minute YouTube from the Green Nature site introducing bee types visually:

Shipley Nature Center

I finally went today after a long time away. Blackbird Pond had water, so I thought I'd hunt for turtles. The person I talked to in the Center said there should be turtles there--that they liked to rest on "the log" in "the middle" of the water. As you can see, there are more than a few logs there.

I didn't find any, but I did see hummingbirds, an egret, a heron (can you see it?), lizards, oddly shaped trees, and some grumpy ducks.

Technically, the ducks were not at the nature center, they were further out in the park proper, out in front of Breakfast in the Park. They like to rest on the warm walkway there where it's warm. They'll get out of the way when approached, muttering all the while.

I wonder what they'll do when Breakfast in the Park isn't there to be a gathering place and source of bread?

Look closely. There is more there than mud.

A Rosy Day

Yesterday was a rose-filled day.

I started by stripping all the fully-open roses from the bushes to make beads.

But, before I ground them up, I had to stop and admire the way the Fourth of July roses are all different. Hundreds of flowers on one bush, all streaked, speckled, and spotted in unique ways.

After admiring them--and dragging in family members to also admire them--I took a picture.

Then, I got busy and ground them up, simmered them for a few hours, and drained them while I shaped beads from the previous batch & put them out to dry.

I also used the rose-water from the bead-making to scent some soap.

While the rest of the rose-water was used to make a rose-apple crumble (yummy!).

Incidentally, gathering large batches of roses at once confuses the bees, or so I judge from their behavior around the fourth of July bush. All day long, they had been coming to the bushes, gathering nectar, and going home to dance their dances, assuring others of flowers and food. All of the sudden, there was nothing there, save the bees, flying around where the flowers ought to be, bumbling into the buds hopefully, and then flying off with disgruntled looks on their little faces.

There are also plenty of roses left around the house, floating in bowls or standing in vases.

Not all of the bushes are even blooming yet--some of the bare-root roses have only just started to discover that they are bushes at all.

I may eventually run out of things to do with roses--beyond admiring them, that is.

Serendipity

A photo from my files.

*******

Sometimes we plan.

Sometimes, things just work out right.

This was a bit of both.

I had the camera, I went on the walk, I was looking.

I wanted to get the butterfly, a bee, and a flower all in one frame.

But I could never, ever have gotten the bee to rear back just so, or the butterfly to turn its antenna at just that angle.

I wouldn't have thought to ask, even had I known how.

I love it when things come together this way…