The Strange Behavior of Butterflies (first draft)

from Busy in the Sun: A Big Old Garden Story

A honeybee worker hummed happily through the tall plants along the sunny garden path. The sun was warm, and the swaying clumps of goldenrod and purple ironweed looked like music and smelled like happiness come alive.

Purple was her very most favorite color, and she would have loved to skip from flower to flower, drinking nectar from all the clusters of ironweed. But today this honeybee worker was given the job of collecting pollen from the many tiny goldenrod blossoms instead….