Lacy petals

 Hello all!

Monday August 17th and just about 2 weeks left until we go back to school on 1st September.  Enough about that!

I am happy today because I have finished and have submitted the final paper for the Textiles Material Science course I have been doing with the University of Borås in Sweden. It feels great to have pressed the 'Submit' button at last and to have one less thing on my list of Things to Do This Summer. 

I still have some written work to do on the Foundation Certificate of Achievement in Spinning, so you know, there is never a dull moment. 

The weather is overcast, still, warm and humid today. Grey skies, a soft drizzle and humidity of 70%! I have to say I got a bit of a shock there when I saw Relative Humidity of 70%. I rarely look at the humidity levels, but even I think that 70% is high, no?

We had some fine sunny days last week and I discovered that a small leaf-cutter bee has been utilising the petals of some flowers I have on the side deck. The petals had begun to look 'lacy' I thought, but I just presumed they were dying back or something. Then when I was sitting outside last week, I noticed a small bee carrying pieces of petal to a gap in the wood of our house wall. Then I watched her emerge and to my surprise she flew down to a bright yellow flower (Black-Eyed Susan) and cut an oval shaped piece from it, then flew back to the gap and in with her. 

As you can see from the photos, which were taken a few hours apart, she took pieces from the yellow flower first, then later on took pieces from the orange flower. 

Quite amazing to witness. I read later that she is a solitary bee, a leaf-cutter bee, and she uses the pieces of petal/leaf to make individual nests where she lays one egg. 

I hope to get a photo or video of here, but perhaps she is finished laying her eggs, or maybe the grey weather doesn't suit her. I live in hope!