The dogs and I walk all the time. On the sunny side of the street there are thick patches of clover beloved of bees, and dogs. I don't know why, but I've always loved clover. As a child I remember lying in the clover and watching bees doing their busy work. I was good at relaxing and being perfectly still. Those clever little buzzers were so busy with the flowers that I was able watch, close up, exactly what they did.
We don't have many honey bees in Alaska. Those few beekeepers we have provide all the honeybees there are up here. We do have some very nice bumblebees, though. Ole was making a habit of sniffing bumblebees as they worked the flowers. He never got stung, and I wonder if he just liked the way the wings went bzzt on his nose.
A few weeks ago I started glancing at the clover as the dogs and I walked, and I found a four-leaf clover. Great, I thought, I'll press that, laminate it into a card and send it to my granddaughter, Piper. So I pressed it into Sons and Lovers, a horrid book by DH Lawrence. (I actually threw this book across the room. Yes, the writing is good but the story is maddeningly awful. But it's thick, so it makes a great plant-pressing book.)
Today we were walking and the dogs were snurfling some clover and alder, and I thought, I'll just take this chance to look for another four-leaf clover so my other granddaughter, Piper's brand new sister Freyja, could have one, too. And then I found this! If I find a six-leaf clover I'll let you know.
It makes me wonder, if a five-leaf clover is luckier than one with four leaves, would a six-leafer be half again as lucky as a four-leaf? Would an eight-leaf clover be twice as lucky?
