My dog loves to follow the bees. Actually all kinds of bugs. If it moves, she follows it. Sometimes they get away. Sometimes they don’t. Tonight she caught a spider that was trying to hide under the recliner.

But she likes bees best of all. In my garden I have huge, fat bumblebees and giant carpenter bees. They dance around the Lupines, buzz the Ceanothus trees, kiss the Clarkias and even rest, sometimes, in the heart of the Poppies. These are hardworking native bees so they are working all the time. Not like those sissy European honey bees that only come around when the sun is shining bright.

Cassie doesn’t run and chase the the bees as much as she wants to get up close, nose to nose with them like she does with me. Sometimes I look out there and she is standing, nose to nose with a Lupine as tall as she is, not snapping at the bee, just watching as it hovers in place. When the bee moves, so does she.

I’m worried that she is going to get stung one day. Heck, I know she will. It’s just a matter of time.

I like that every day it is the same thing for her, up close and personal with the bees, following them around the garden wherever they go. She stands up, awkwardly, on her hind legs when they fly out of reach and shoves her head into a bank of Clarkias when a bee dives under a leaf. She’s brave, that dog of mine.

I follow the words.

Some days I get closer than other. Some days I have to stretch on my tippy toes to find the treasure almost hidden out of reach. And some days I have to dive into a mess and just hope to find the words on the other side.

But every day, I’m up close and personal with the words, trying to tell the truest story I can tell.