Happy Valentine's Day!

While everyone else hands out little pink candy conversation hearts proclaiming "Bee Mine," "Miss You," "Call Me,"  "Kiss Me," and "I Love You,"  insect enthusiasts post photos of bugs "keeping busy."

We spotted an unforgettable scene recently in a flower patch behind the UC Davis Lab Sciences Building. The ladybugs (actually they're "lady beetles" because they're not bugs) were devouring aphids on the brittlebush (Encelia farinosa), a desert shrub we see throughout California, northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. 

Quite contentedly, we might add. And doing a great job, we might also add.

But that's not all they were doing.

Brittlebush makes a good dining room, living room and bedroom. 

Soon the flower patch will turn into a nursery.