Flowers of the Field Puns

A man sat with his son one day and told him a story of him and his father:

One day, his father took him to their special spot by the lake, a large clearing, once full of beautiful flowers but now all that stood in their place were numerous holes due to moles making their homes in the field.

His father asked him to count holes and tell him how many there were. He took all day but managed to find 300 holes.

His father then took him to another field that had been ravaged by moles and asked him to count how many holes there were. He managed to find 400 holes.

His father then asked him how many holes there were total, and he replied "700 holes, dad, but why did you make me count the holes?"

His father smiled and replied, "Well son, it might not be a very interesting tale; but it's a hole sum story you can tell your kids in the future!"

This was always one of my dad's favorites to tell us.

A long time ago, there was a beehive in the middle of a forest. Every day, as worker bees do, they would go out into their fields, gather pollen from the flowers, and bring it back to make honey.

The bees had a problem, though, because every so often an intruder would come around, such as a bear who wanted the honey, or kids who thought it'd be fun to throw rocks at the hive. Finally, the bees got tired of it.

Being the intelligent bees that they are, they built an alarm system for the hive. They built it such that one bee pulls a lever, which triggers the alarm that the bees will hear from the fields, and then the bees can come back to protect their home.

There was one bee who was exclusively assigned that job, and he was aptly named the "Lever Bee." His job was to watch for potential adversaries, and pull the lever to raise the alarm.

Now clearly, the safety of the hive depends on this one Lever Bee. So it stands to reason that he has to be constantly ready and on the alert so that he can do his job.

And that, friends, is why people say, "I'm as ready as a Lever Bee."