Gold-Fuzzed Bee and Rose - Missoula, Montana,

"It became a game that I took to with immense gusto: to see how much I could remember about dandelions themselves, ... or searching out the smell of the gold-fuzzed bees that hung around our back porch grape arbor. Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers."

– Ray Bradbury, from Just This Side of Byzantium,

An Introduction [to some editions of Dandelion Wine], Summer 1974

(I suppose this quote merited my crouching patiently next to any dandelion bloom peppering the backyard... but this little flier conveniently buzzed at shoulder height, so there you have it. I will pencil in crouching for another day.)

Bee Smells, Missoula, Montana

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
- Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Rose Hips Together, Missoula, Montana

“No person ever died that had a family.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

End-Of-Summer Dandelion, Missoula, Montana

There‘s been some chit chat lately on Another Porch about the book “Dandelion Wine“, which inspired me to revisit this all-time favourite story. Perhaps this quote will provoke you to check it out from your local library.
  “Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people in the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you’re all to yourself that way, you’re really proud of yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine