Thanksgiving Past at the CB, DY 3

Boy Howdy! Sweet potatoes, white potatoes, green beans, chunky cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing, fruit salad, rolls and the chicken almost got roasted in time to eat with the rest of the feast. Yes that particular chicken must have accidentally got in the fire retardant when it lived at the chicken ranch. Cluck, cluck.

Crumby, fortified by his new mantras, is in the process of achieving a more positive attitude during this holiday season than ever before. Admittedly, the flat tire on the wheel barrow was a temporary downer for Crumby, but that was just a passing bummer, soon rectified by the Great Stuff. Now, abetted by two new mantras, Great Stuff and a positive attitude, Crumby intends to somehow make it through his upcoming birthday, the Winter Solstice, Baby Demon Mammon Day, Secular New Year and Imbolc, pestered not by the hew and cry.

For example, lots of bad stuff, not just the flat tire, happened to Crumby on Thanksgiving Eve. But Crumby shrugged off all that evil. Crumby thought, all this evil shit is plenty awful, but look how plump or well fed I am. I get plenty of sleep and rest. I have lots of leisure time. In common with white people, I don’t have to work much. Life is great, just like, Great Stuff.

Yet Crumby, even as his self-centeredness gushes over, remembers the less fortunate. Like for example, this little bee is less fortunate because it is afflicted with mites. Crumby super sympathizes with this bee. Because seed ticks once got on Crumby at about the same density as those mites are on that bee. But Crumby could reach around and get most of those seed ticks off himself. And the ones he couldn’t get off, Ray could get off. But this little bee has no such arms or a bosom companion to help get shut of the mites. Naja-Bullah- Za-Zi!

Since there is already a picture of a bee handy, Crumby might as well see if he can figure out this particular bee's genera. Uh! No he can’t. That’s because Crumby can not espy the bee’s subantennal sutures or much of its wing venation. Unfortunately, the little wild bees, both the fuzzy Halictids and Andrenids like to keep their wings tightly folded over their backs when they are sitting around. Plus their dern faces are so hairy, Crumby can’t even espy the facial sutures, much less count them. Ugh!

Crumby may have no choice. Crumby may have to somehow do some catch and release with some of these bees.

Huh-huh. There are free bee books on the internet. That's right. The Bees of the Eastern United States by Mitchell, both volumes, are available for download somewhere as pdf files. Huh-huh. Species keys!!!!