Bunnies, Bees & Guineas
In my first blog post, I mentioned how much the white cotton tail bunnies love the clover that grows wild all over our yard
What I didn’t mention is that guinea pigs love it, too. We’ve had 30 over the last many years, and we quickly learned what their favorite food is. Yep, clover. Tender, fresh, succulent, leafy, sweet green clover. The newer, the better….as in, popped up fresh for breakfast that very morning. The same goes for dandelion greens, too.
Bees. Bees and white clover flowers go together like bees and honey. They are always busily buzzing around the little white multi-petaled flowers tucked into the large green clover patches. Bees are the main pollinators of clover.
Do you know about clover honey? I keep raw clover honey on hand and put a tablespoon in a glass of lemon and water each day to help counteract allergies. The honey needs to be from bees in your local area to combat the local allergens.
You can also eat raw and cooked clover. Dandelions, too! The bunnies, bees and guineas know.
Lucky Little Clover
In the wild, carefree psychedelic 70s, I was in elementary school. Most of the kids ran around the playground at recess playing tag, baseball, tetherball or other games requiring decent coordination (and I wasn’t very coordinated), I sat with a friend in the deep green grass looking for four-leaf clovers. She seemed to always find them, but I never did. I surely needed lots of luck just to be able to find the lucky little clovers!
We spent countless sunshine and sweet-leafy-green days sitting in that grass looking for four-leaf clovers. I may not have ever found any of the four-leaf variety, but what I was lucky enough to find were Ladybugs! Fat, round, perfectly symmetrical, and bright glossy red with black spots They were beautiful!
We held them in our hands and watched them crawl up and down our fingers. Upon reaching the end of a finger, the ladybug always seemed to know it was time to go. She would lift up the two top red casings, and out unfolded delicate deep brown sheer wings which had been ingeniously hidden and protected beneath. After they unfurled to their full shape, she gently and effortlessly rose unto the unseen currents of air, floating quietly away until I could no longer see her.
Ladybugs and Ladybirds
As a child, since ladybugs were called “lady-bugs,” I always thought they were female (as opposed to “gentleman” bugs). In the United States, this is what we we call them.
In England, however, they are called “ladybirds.” What a lovely name for a lovely bug! “Ladybug” is very nice term, but “ladybird” is better!
The following lyrics are from “Ladybug Ladybird,” of Helen Ferris’s “Favorite Poems Old and New, Selected for boys and girls,” 1957.
Ladybug Ladybird
Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
the field mouse is gone to her nest
the daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes
and the birds and the bees are at rest
Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
the glow worm is lighting her lamp
the dew’s falling fast, and your fine speckled wings
will flag with the close clinging damp
Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
the fairy bells tinkle afar
make haste or they’ll catch you and harness you fast
with a cobweb to Oberon’s star.
Ladybird Ladybird, the modern children’s rhyme
Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone,
All except one,
And her name is Ann,
And she hid under the baking pan
*These adorable images – Itty Bitty Bugz, Bumble Bea – & Leia Ladybug – are available in b&w and color as digital downloads in my Etsy shop SherryWestArt https://www.etsy.com/shop/SherryWestArt for all of your spring scrapbooking and papercrafting projects.
Further interesting reading on the subject of Ladybugs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_Ladybird
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/06/24/ladybirds-ladybugs-cows/
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150610-the-dark-side-of-nursery-rhymes
https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=esu0026p=1345
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinellidae
HAPPY ART FOR A HAPPY HEART! 