The Flower And The Wasp

One thing I've been trying to do recently is keep things small. What I really mean is that I'm looking for the little things that make nature great. This time I was able to find two little things that make an everyday adventure very pleasant indeed.

The first thing you might notice in my pictures today is the bug that is crawling around on that white flower. The bug appears to be a type of wasp. Now wait. Before you think of the urge to run from a stinging little monster, there are a few kinds of wasp that are harmless to us humans, and even to those of you readers of the feline variety. This may be one of those.

The other thing you are sure to notice is the daisy-like flower that the little wasp is sitting on. This flower and all the others in these pictures are actually called Fleabane. There are two kinds of this plant in my area that I know of. One is Daisy Fleabane, and the other is Common Fleabane. This plant is one of those two, but I'm not good enough with plants yet to know which one. Maybe you know.

Here you can see that the wasp and the flower have become fast friends. They are helping each other survive. You can see the yellow pollen all over the bug's legs, and even on a few other places. They both get to benefit from this. Aren't good friends great?

Sometimes it's the little things in nature that make me happy. Watching a bug crawl around on a flower can be fun and relaxing, especially if you know the bug is there to help the flower. I like to think that all living things are trying to help in some little way. These two help each other. And maybe we humans are in some way the caretakers of the whole planet.

I'm sure there are other caretakers on Earth too, but we are one kind of them. I personally think we are doing a good job. Why? Because we are still alive. All of us, no matter how little some of us think we care, do little things to try to help our world, even if there are mistakes sometimes. I try to look for those little things, no matter how small. It makes me feel good when I find what I'm looking for.

This wasp will soon fly away to another little flower that's no bigger than the cap on a bottle of soda pop. The other flower will gratefully accept its payload of pollen. The wasp may never even know that it's helping the flower. All it may know is that it's collecting valuable food for itself and its young. But its small actions of its own survival are greater than it knows.

I guess our planet really knew what it was doing when it created both of these living things. There is a harmony there that we, being more of the living beings created on this planet, may never full understand. I wonder what purpose the planet created us for. We'll probably never know, just like this little wasp.