Looking for Bugs

 

I go out looking for bugs to take pictures of. These are Black Bean Aphids on a thorny Black Locust sprout with their ant caretakers.

I thought I’d found some kinda crazy orange spider. Then I realized it was a milkweed beetle caught in a web.

I did find one of these black and yellow beauties — in the middle of the day no less. I usually only find them in the early morning when the dew coats their webs.

 I was out walking around the back forty looking for wildflowers and bugs when I spot this stabilimentum. That’s a fancy word meaning a decoration made up of an extra thick line of silk. In this case it’s a distinctive zigzag pattern of the Yellow Garden Spider.

Plenty of spiders make a stablilimentum in lots of beautiful patterns. It was originally thought its purpose was to help stabilize the web. Now it’s thought it serves as a warning beacon to keep birds and bats from flying into it. Recent studies show that with a stabilimentum, a spider doesn’t catch near as many insects so they must have a very good reason for making one.

I knew this could very well be an old web but I went looking for the spider just the same and there she was, making a bug burrito!

You can see the silk coming from her spinneret.

 Check out this fuzzy butt!

“Peg, is he supposed to look like that or is he sick?” you wanna know.

I know, right! That’s what I wanted to know too. I asked the insect group on Facebook.

“It’s a leafcutter bee,” I was told. “Instead of collecting pollen on their legs they pack it onto hairs on the undersides of their abdomens.”

Leafcutters burrow in the ground to lay their eggs and it’s thought they line the cell with leaves and that’s how they got their name.

 Look what I found!

This is a Black Swallowtail ‘pillar. I brought him into my butterfly house but I’m getting worried about him. I found him on Queen Ann’s Lace so I brought some of that in too, but I don’t think he’s eating and he hasn’t made his cocoon yet.

Rather than have him die I’m gonna take him back to where I found him.

 Green Stink bug in his fifth and last instar before becoming an adult.

And this one? I think it’s a Pearl Crescent but I recently learned that there’s another butterfly that looks almost exactly the same. And that would be a Silvery Checkerspot. The main difference between the two is the Checkerspot has a row of small black and white dots along the edge of his wing. But I think that even the Pearl Crescents have a little of that marking too.

 Now, every time I see one I take his picture to see if I can find a Checkerspot.

 

 Great Spangled Fritillary.

Spitfire is a mighty hunter! He brought this in one morning. I don’t think it’s a short-tailed mouse, I think it’s a vole.

I’d just fed the cats when he came leaping over the fence with his catch in his mouth. We were heading out to do a little shopping and I hoped it’d be gone by the time we got home.

The Aldi Review this week showed they had a special buy on children’s face masks with different characters on them. I’m always looking for things to stuff in a goodie box for our grandson Andrew and thought this would be something he could use, especially since he’s started back to school.

“Do they have to wear masks?” I asked that handsome son of ours.

“No. Not yet anyway,” Kevin answered.

No matter. I’d get them anyway. Maybe he could use them when they go shopping or, if they instituted a mask policy at school, he’d have them.

You know what a shopping trip means, don’t you?

“Road pictures?” you guess.

Yep.

The new bridge opened and this is the first time we crossed it.

A long line of traffic and flashing lights told us something was going on up ahead.

Skid marks. A wrecker. A wreck?

I had my zoom part way out so I got kinda closeup on the wrecked front end. I haven’t heard any particulars on this accident.

Do you remember the building I showed you where the guy put a steel frame around it and they wouldn’t let him tear it down because it was on the historical registry?

I don’t know what’s changed but it’s gone now!

I showed you a picture of this garage before the doors were on and there were a couple of old cars inside. I wondered if the one peeking around the center post wasn’t a Mustang. Turns out, it was — is!

 This says Rebel on the side.

I had to Google who made it. You might’ve already known it was AMC.

And we saw this old grocery-go-getter!

The Aldi’s store I was shopping at hadn’t gotten the masks in. It wasn’t a total wasted trip. We found a few other things to buy anyway — and I got a couple of masks at Walmart.

When we got home, I went to take Itsy out. I see Spitfire dressed his vole. I wondered why then saw it move. I’m guessing he tried to get away and was in the weeds when Spitfire caught him again.

Tiger wanted to go out. Spitfire can be possessive about his kills. I wondered how he’d react to Tiger nosing around it.

Tiger spotted it, maybe smelled it too, and laid down. Spitfire kissed noses.

I didn’t hang around. I figured if Spitfire was gonna give him a lesson then he could just give him a lesson and I wouldn’t interfere. I went back inside. That didn’t stop me from checking on them though.

I hadn’t heard any yowling or hissing or crying so I thought Tiger just knew not to mess with someone else’s kill.

Was I surprised to see Tiger had the vole?

Yes!

Yes, I was!

He played with it for a long time.

Not all cats will eat voles and maybe that’s why Spitfire gave it up. He won’t eat them. But Tiger did! He ate it! I made him stay out for a while after that. Just in case he puked.

I was out getting food for my Monarchs when I see this guy. This is a Banded Net-wing Beetle. Can you see the texture on his wings? Someone thought it looked like netting and that’s how they got the name.

The ridges are very brittle and rupture easily when they’re attacked which releases a defensive chemical. They’ll also reflex-bleed from the leg joints when attacked. That just means he does it on purpose.

 I found two more caterpillars for my butterfly house. The milkweed is starting to die off so I’m guessing I won’t find many more.

“Peg, how are your caterpillars doing?” you ask.

How are my babies doing? I’ll tell you how they’re doing!

I only had one butterfly born all week long. Another male. I usually let them stay in the safety of the butterfly house until they’re almost dry, then take them out to the flowers and park ‘em. But by the time I got around to this guy he was rarin to go. It was all I could do to hold on to him long enough to get a picture!

When I decided to go back to my old butterfly house, I had to clean it out first. There was still caterpillar scat on the bottom that I didn’t clean because I didn’t have any caterpillars in there. Now I had to clean it. I pulled out a couple of dried-up milkweed leaves and find this guy squiggling around on the bottom.

“What is it?” you wonder.

          I know, right! I wondered too. Did it come in with the milkweed leaves? One thing’s for sure — it’s not a Monarch.

          I put him in an old cup with a leaf until I could decide what to do with him.

          A couple of days later I noticed the one chrysalis that had been hanging there for a long time was open. Then I knew what my little ‘friend’ was.

Yeah, was.

He died, turned brown, and shriveled up after a few hours alone in the cup. No big loss though. This is one of the predators of the Monarch. This was a Tachinid Fly maggot. The flies lay their eggs on the caterpillars and that’s what they eat.

          I’ve found a few dead Monarch caterpillars when I was out getting leaves or caterpillar hunting and wondered if that’s what happed to them too.

I had one caterpillar hanging in a j from the top of the house so all day long I’d been watching for his chrysalis to form.

I was shocked when I looked in and saw his shed skin hanging and he was gone! Then I saw something wiggling in the milkweed leaves and there he was. This guy was a failure! He was supposed to clip the skin so it would fall and instead clipped his anchor.

I laughed, shook my head, and got a piece of string. I looped it over the tail end, knotted it and hung him up. Pretty soon his chrysalis hardened and he was happy and sleeping.

Saturday morning, I had three Monarchs born!

Two healthy females.

And one not so healthy.

Sigh and sadness.

I’m finding out that there’s a learning curve to raising Monarchs. When I transferred this one to the birthing house, her tail came off the chrysalis and I didn’t have anything to hang her by. So I just left it in the bottom of the cage. When she emerged Saturday morning, I knew she needed to hang for her wings to dry so I helped her get up to the top. When I thought she was anchored pretty good, I left. After a while when I checked on her, she’d fallen. I helped her up again. But the damage was done. Her wing won’t unfurl.

I Googled it. Her chance of emerging from a fallen chrysalis were so-so. At least that in and of itself isn’t an automatic death sentence. But then to have fallen when she was pumping her wings was the final blow.

“What are you going to do now?” you ask.

The insect page said put her in a sandwich bag and let her sleep in the freezer.

Another suggestion is to let nature take its course. She’ll never be able to fly. Birds learn that Monarchs don’t taste good. So maybe she’ll teach a young bird that they taste bad. If he’s tasting her, he’ll leave a healthy one alone.

The other suggestion was to keep her and feed her honey water. She may live for weeks but she’ll never loose the desire to fly. Some think that’s more cruel than the freezer method.

I’m leaning toward letting nature take its course. At least then she’ll get to experience the wind and nature around her and the taste of flowers rather than a cage and her life will have some meaning.

          But I’m learning. If I ever have another chrysalis that won’t hang, I’ll super glue a string to it!

          Do you see this patch of milkweed? Do you see how far it is from my house?

          I took Itsy out front to pee and when I was coming back in, I found a Monarch ‘pillar right outside my door! How the heck did he get so far away from his food source? I put him in the butterfly house.

Maybe they’re seeking me out! Maybe I’m a caterpillar whisperer!

We usually take the golf cart to check the mail. If the mail’s not here yet we use that as an excuse to go for a ride down to the lower bridge — not that we need an excuse. Sometimes we pass the mailman, sometimes we don’t.

I took this picture of the neighbors house. She always has so much going on and I can only imagine the hours she puts in keeping things looking nice — at least weed-free. But an umbrella on the porch? I don’t get it.

 This is the first time we noticed the plethora of locks on the gate leading to the gas well pad.

“Why so many locks?” I asked and mulled it over.

It’s a way to join a too-short chain. Then another idea hit me. “Maybe it gives keys to a bunch of different people!”

It’s on the hunter’s property so they get a key. The guy that comes and fills the tanks that fuel the generators needs a key. Security needs a key. Maybe there’s a maintenance crew too.

I wonder if they know they can have a bunch of keys made for the same lock.

I’d gotten my flu shot when we went shopping the other day. But Mike couldn’t get his because the Medicare website was down and he woulda hada pay for his.

CVS called the next day and said the website was up again and Mike could get his shot.

That meant an extra trip to Towanda. Here’s a few road pictures from that trip.

Passing Joanie’s courthouse, at least that’s where she works, I see the tree guys are working.

“Are they trimming them or taking them down?” I asked Mike like he’d know.

 Someone who did know what was going on was Joanie.

“We got in this morning and a big branch had fallen,” she told me. “They’re taking down both big trees 😭. I love those shade trees! They took out all my beautiful rose bushes along the river too. They suck!”

It’s sad to see them go.

The big winds that took down the branch were remnants of Laura, the hurricane that hit Louisiana and Texas. Mike’s got tons of branches to pick up here too. But branches aren’t the only thing it left behind. It brought me a rainbow.

Looking in the opposite direction.

Getting our flu shots wasn’t the only excitement here at the Luby household this week either! Mike got his hair cut! Yeah, baby! Excitement! I can’t stand it!

All kidding aside, we tried a new girl. She’s not new new. She’s been cutting hair over twenty years. She’s just new to us.

Road pictures.

Paula has a little shop at her house.

“Can I walk around your property and take pictures while you cut Mike’s hair?” I asked.

“Sure!” she immediately agreed then asked, “What are you taking pictures for?”

“I blog,” is my standard answer and usually satisfies people.

Paula’s place is beautiful! A huge garden, tons of flowers, several fruit trees.

I saw this beauty. This is a Hackberry Emperor. I found out some interesting things when I researched this butterfly for you.

Hackberry is the only host plant for Hackberry Emperor butterfly to lay its eggs ant the only food the caterpillars eat.

They’re a member of the brush-footed family. That’s the largest family of butterflies with more than 6,000 species throughout the world. The forelegs have a brush-like set of hairs on them and that’s how they get that common name.

Another common name for them is four-footed butterflies because they are known to stand on only four legs while the other two are curled up so it looks like they only have four legs.  

But you wanna know the most interesting thing I found out about the Hackberry Emperor?

“What’s that. Peg?”

The adult butterflies sip moisture and minerals from mud and they’ll land on people to drink sweat for salts. They feed on tree sap, fermenting fruit, dung, carrion, and rarely flower will you see them on flowers.

I guess I got lucky.

We decided to go to the Westside Deli in Dushore for lunch and took back roads.

I think this place used to be a bar.

Mike, looking all dapper with his fresh haircut and beard trim, sat on the patio while I donned my mask, went in, and ordered for us.

“What’d’ya get?” I know you wanna know.

Mike got a bacon cheeseburger and I got the cheesesteak with everything.

Someone told me they had good jalapeno poppers here but when I ordered them, I was told they didn’t have them.

“We have Rattlesnake Bites.”

“What are those?” I asked.

“…jalapenos…”

I don’t remember what she said but I heard the word jalapeno so I ordered them. What I got was jalapenos sliced, batter dipped, and deep fried with a side of canned cheese. I ate a few. Mike ate a few. But we left most of them sitting on the plate.

After we ate, we swung past the graveyard and said hello to Momma, Pop, and brother Mike. My beloved Aunt Marie is here too, just on the other side, along with several other members of the Soden clan.  

“Let’s take Marsh home,” Mike suggested.

I was surprised. He doesn’t like the Marsh Road and normally doesn’t take it unless I beg. On the way out of town this old house sits. I snapped its picture and remembered the time I saw a cat sitting in the broken kitchen window.

“How do you know it was the kitchen?” you ask.

“Did you see the refrigerator?” Mike asked.

That’s how I know.

“Can we stop?” I asked.

Mike pulled over. I got out and walked back.

I peeked in the kitchen window. The fridge is an old Crosley Shelvador.

 There’s a lot of junk in there!

I think I see an old stove back there!

Is that a light over the clock? And P on one side and S on the other. For the life of me I can’t think of one stove manufacturer with those initials — but then again, I’ve never heard of Crosley either.

I hear you laughing at me. You think I make this stuff up.

“Peg! Don’t you think that means pepper and salt?” you say.

All I can say is I’m glad I could make your day a little brighter.

 “How’s your patio coming along?” you ask.

Slowly. Mike’s never done any stonework before so he has to figure things out as he goes along.

Originally, we were going to try to incorporate an existing slab of concrete into the design but it sits much too low. Mike tried but it gave us a big dip in the patio. So, we’re going over top.

Me?

In my free time I’ve been trying to shorten the sleeves on a couple of shirts for Mike.

I wasn’t careful enough when I cut the sleeves off the first one and when I tried to put the hem in it gave me problems. I tore it out like four times. Then I decided to start over with a fresh shirt (and tutorial videos on YouTube) and in no time at all I had one done.

“What’s wrong with long sleeve shirts?” you ask.

Mike’s long arms, that’s what. The sleeves on a long sleeve shirt are always too short for him. I picked up several long sleeve shirts at a yard sale so it’s well worth my time to shorten them for him.

With that, let’s call this one done!