Suspicious Black Flying Insects
I spent the day working in my garden. I took my portable computer desk outside, and placed the laptop on it in a shady corner, and I worked on the book. That counts as working in the garden.
Mike came over. He and Bob and Jen relaxed in the hammock, drank beer, and entertained me for a brief time away from the book. I can't have any fun until I send this manuscript away. But happy things like Mike appearing in my backyard give me an occasional shot in the arm.
"You have the nicest office of anyone I know, except me."
Mike doesn't have an office.
Working in the garden, making trips through the house to pee, or for juice, I kept hearing a fly buzzing in my kitchen. Late in the afternoon I began to close up the house. The buzzing "fly" was still there in the window. Only it wasn't a fly. It was a humongous furry flying black beetle bee!
"What the...?!"
The thing was to fat to squash, too slow-moving to be truly scary. I trapped it in a cup, and tossed it outside. Weird critter. I wonder what it was.
Next day, same story, different window. Loud buzzing, huge black bumbling bug. This time the cat is involved. Catch and release. "What are these horrible and silly critters?" I asked Kathy, who grew up around here, and knows everything about the garden.
"Carpenter bees. They eat wood."
Wikipedia: "Males are harmless since they do not have a stinger. Female bees do have a stinger, but are not aggressive, and will not sting unless directly provoked."