While she was gardening in a rural mobile home park outside Lexington, Kentucky, over a three-year period, author Pen Douglas came into contact with good Kentucky soil, vegetables, flowers-and a large number of "nature neighbors." Some of these last were welcome, while others were considered necessary nuisances. With wit and humor, the whimsical poems of Lyrics for a Lady Bug capture in verse the various garden critters that Douglas encountered. They meet and greet and sometimes compete during her gardening labors. In this collection, Douglas celebrates insect life in the garden in all its charming variety. Lyrics for a Lady Bug Teeny-tiny ladybug, dressed in orange and black, you remind me of a foreign car whose engine is in back. In ebony and orange attire, you're dressed for Halloween. Small beetle eyes without a mask survey a country scene. Survivor-sojourner with a past, far from your mother's home; Was it a fiery furnace blast which orphaned you and brings you here to roam amongst my flowers of marigolds and mums? I watch you travel stalks and leaves far from the city's slums