Ojo loses his footing in the apricot tree, full of frozen blooms. We had a few nights around 20 degrees just at its peak bloom. Then it snowed three inches a couple of nights in a row last week, which brought much-needed moisture and melted beautifully by afternoon each day.

So while the early tulips on the southwest corner pull back their energy from flowers to foliage and bulbs, these later tulips on the southeast corner are just coming into their glory.

Meanwhile in Bees: I finally caught one bumblebee on the almond tree before its flowers also froze, and another in the mystery tree who has just come into full bloom. The best guess is this is a wild plum, but nobody knows for certain. I dug up a sucker from the roots of the almond tree some years ago and planted it, and this magnificent being came to pass. When it flowers it is a crazy bee magnet, and draws more fast little native bees than any other plant in the garden. When you think you’ve got spots before your eyes watching this video, those are bees.

The one elusive bumblebee (Bombus huntii I think) on the last gasp of the almond tree.

Also making the most of the flowering trees, this glossy black creature which resembles a wasp more than a bee. There are a couple of native bee genera that are black and largely hairless, but as far as I can tell, they are all smaller than half an inch, and this one is about an inch long.

Anthophora, I think. I’m open to expert ID on any of these.

And a little mason bee, all on the peach tree last week before it froze so hard.

Another Andrena in the Tulipa tarda, along with a very tiny native bee. Notice her mouthparts in the photo below, and her companion below that.

Those were last week’s bees. Below are this weeks picks so far. But I’m not going to try to ID them because frankly I am fried. First world problems all, but the past five days have been pretty challenging. On the phone with Apple support today I almost had a panic attack. It all started Friday morning, when the plumber came to replace a faucet that he had installed last week but it was defective, so I spent a week turning off the hot water between using the sink. He got the new faucet in but it required non-standard fittings which he didn’t have, so I spent the weekend washing dishes in the bathroom sink and eating take-out pizza.

That afternoon I discovered all the contacts on my laptop had disappeared, which turned out would have been a simple fix if I’d known how, but instead I tried to restart the computer. After that, 24 hours with Apple support and the conclusion was a fatal software corruption: the computer has to be wiped clean to even think about making it work again. ACK! I kept my cool. I’ve got backups for most of the photos and all but the last three months of everything else. Oh well, meditation seems to be helping as I really didn’t wig out, though I may if it turns out nothing can be salvaged. And really, Apple support could not have been more pleasant nor tried any harder to help, all nine people I’ve spoken with since Friday.

Overnight Friday a log smoldered in the woodstove, filling the house with smoke, but I’d been to such a good party the night before that I slept right through it until morning and the house reeked like a stale campfire all day while I kept the fire roaring and doors and windows open. Everything was still ok, and this morning the plumber came and fixed the faucet, and then… the Mail app on my desktop quit functioning. Another four hours on the phone with tech support, and it’s still not back. This is the universe telling me to stay away from machines for awhile and spend even more time out in the yard!

And still I’m not nearly as freaked out as I might have been if I hadn’t started taking an anti-depressant last Tuesday. I had so much to write: about the garden, and meditation, and the forest coming back to spring life, and about why I’m finally taking a drug for my state of mind, before all this computer nonsense started, and now my brain is just numb. Time to try again another day, and go out in the garden with a gin gimlet, and watch the sunset light up the peach tree.

What IS this gorgeous moth?

At least four creatures feeding on they mystery tree in this image.

Another species of Anthophora, on the peach tree. Unlike honeybees which have a pollen basket on their back legs, most native bees are equipped with a scopa, a brush of specialized hairs in which they collect pollen. Her exceptionally long tongue makes her adept at gathering nectar from long tubular flowers, though none of them are open yet so she’s working the trees.