Don't Bug Me

           It seems like I’ve got a lot of bugs to show you this week.

          “I hate bugs!” you say.

          I have to confess. There are some bugs I hate more than others and there are some I don’t hate at all. But you can add critters and people in those criteria, too!

          How about if we start off with something kinda pretty, since my week started off by finding him.

          This is a Giant or Great Leopard Moth. The males have a three-inch wingspan. The females are about half their size. They’re nocturnal, which means they mostly fly at night. They navigate by moonlight and electric lights baffle them. If you find one flying around your porch light, it’s likely a male as the females are less drawn to the brightness.

          As adults they don’t eat. Their sole job is to reproduce and die. Their mating sessions are long-lasting, taking more than twenty-four hours. They stay mostly immobile during that time but will move from spot to spot if it’s too hot or too cold. The male picks the female up and carries her while she folds her legs to be easier to carry.

          And before I go much further, I need to reach back and pick up four pictures I’ve been carrying along for weeks!

          A pretty Morning Glory. The first one I saw of the year.

          A Sandhill Crane took flight as our car approached. 

          One of the boys brought this unfortunate Barn Swallow in one morning and left it on my patio. I tossed him over the fence only to find his feathers on my doorstep the next morning.

The Barn Swallow is the most abundant and widely distributed swallow species in the world. It breeds throughout the Northern Hemisphere and winters in much of the Southern Hemisphere.

          Barn Swallows live about four years and breed after the first. They will use a nest more than once and frequently have two broods a year with the first being larger.

Barn Swallow parents sometimes get help from other birds to feed their young. These “helpers at the nest” are usually older siblings from previous clutches, but unrelated juveniles may help as well.

An unmated male Barn Swallow may kill the nestlings of a nesting pair. His actions often succeed in breaking up the pair and afford him the opportunity to mate with the female.

          And one last Barn Swallow cool fact — but not the last time you’ll see Barn Swallow mentioned: According to legend, the Barn Swallow got its forked tail because it stole fire from the gods to bring to people. An angry deity hurled a firebrand at the swallow, singeing away its middle tail feathers.

          “Peg!” my handsome mountain man yelled from his recliner.

          “What‽” I yelled back.

          “There’s a bird on the patio!”

          That got me moving! I jumped up and on our newly enclosed patio is a Barn Swallow beating himself against the windows.

          “Come here,” I told him and held out my hand. You’d probably be shocked if I told you he came and landed on my finger. Snow White I am not! He went the opposite way of me! Slowly I herded him toward the open doorway and he flew out and away.

          Later in the week, Spitfire came in carrying a bird.

          “Is he dead?” I asked Spitfire. He didn’t answer. “Let him go and let me see.” To my surprise, he did let him go! The wing fluttered, Spitfire moved to reclaim him, I held Spitfire back, the Swallow took three running steps and launched himself into the air.

          What is it with Barn Swallows this week‽          

          A little flower or crab spider I found on the milkweed while looking for Monarch caterpillars.

          “Have you seen any butterflies?” that handsome neighbor of mine asked.

          “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I’ve got some to show you this week.” Then I wondered why he was asking. “Why? Have you?”

          “Nah,” Lamar answered.

          I’ve been seeing the Cabbage White’s and Cloudless Sulphur’s but to honest, I haven’t made much of effort to try to get a picture of one.

          I saw Monarchs a couple of times before I was able to get close enough to get a picture of one.

          And I’ve seen Tiger Swallowtails, too but again, I’m not able to get a picture as they zip past me. “Sit down and let me get your picture!” I beg as I chase them across the yard or down the road. But do they listen‽

          NO!    

          A Great Spangled Fritillary. These guys are similar in size to the Monarch.

          This guy is a Silver-spotted Skipper.

Another Skipper.

          The Kipps stopped on their way home from their morning walk. Beautiful, feisty, redheaded Miss Rosie has the magic touch. She’s got both Raini and Bondi zonked out with her gentle scratches to their chests. 

When they got up to leave, I walked with them to the gate. Mostly to make sure the girls didn’t crowd their way out but I’m sure I chatted the whole way, too.

“Stay!” I told the girls and they actually listened. Aren’t they pretty girls!

“Peg, will you help me with a job?” Mike asked when the Kipps had gone.

I was working on book boxes and get a little obsessive compulsive at times, not wanting to do anything else.

“What do I have to do?” I asked.

“Just help me get that little bridge and guide it while I set it into place.”

I take a moment to shift gears. I’m okay with helping when I know my help is needed. “Sure.”

Mike had spent a few days preparing the groundwork and even though I thought he was rushing it, he was anxious to complete the task.

“You bring the golf cart,” he said. “I’ll meet you up by the barn.”

By the time I got my shoes and camera and started up the hill, I see Mike parked way off to the side. I pulled up next to him. “What’s going on?” I asked.

He nodded toward the building. Our doe was there. He hates to scare her but it can’t be helped.

Mike idled slowly up to the bridge leaning against the barn, hoping to not scare the doe too much. When she thought he was close enough, she got up and ran a few feet away, then stopped and walked into the weeds. This doe’s always up here. Sometimes in the barn, a lot of times right where she is in this picture, and I’ve scared her out of my Bergamot patch, too.

Mike put the bucket down in front of the bridge and I helped lean the bridge back onto the bucket.

I got on the golf cart and got out of the way. I pulled up next to the Autumn Olive bush and just happened to spot a nest of insect eggs.

          “What are they?” you ask.

          I was afraid you were gonna ask that. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’re Stink Bug eggs.

          Mike backed down the hill so the bridge wouldn’t slide off his bucket. 

         He set it near the pond then went for some big ole honkin’ stones to set it on.

          I took pictures while I waited.

          Heal-all is blooming.

          Mike came back with the stone and flopped it into place.

          I wondered how he was going to get the bridge onto that with his little Kioti. Turns out, he wasn’t. He went for the backhoe.

          I took pictures while I waited.

Eastern Forktail Damselfly. 

          Hover Fly. Some people call them Sweat Bees but they aren’t bees and they don’t sting. They just dip their abdomens to make you think they’re gonna sting.

          An RMB or Red Milkweed Beetle.

          This guy sees me and every time I move around one side to take his picture, he moves around the other side.

          Newly hatched larvae dwell in the soil, feeding on milkweed root through early fall and then overwintering in the root. They may resume feeding briefly in spring before pupating.

Adult RMBs eat milkweed leaves, buds, and flowers. They sever leaf veins “upstream” of their feeding site in order to minimize their exposure to the milkweeds’ sticky latex. When an RMB gets latex on its mouthparts, it cleans them immediately by rubbing its face against the leaf; if it delays, it risks having the latex harden, gluing its mouth shut.

          And did you know they make a sound? If you pick them up, they squeak. Placed in a jar with and leaves and flowers, you can hear a soft, almost continuous purring noise. Apparently both sounds are made by both sexes.

          Mike came back with the backhoe and a chain. He used the Kioti to lift an end of the bridge and we got the chain wrapped around the middle.

          Mike climbed up on the backhoe, swung the arm out, and set the bridge in place as slick as you please.

          We had to do a little bit of fine tuning. Mike lifted the end while I slid a flat rock under the six-by-six so it didn’t rock.

          “I need a step here,” Mike said. 

After he rested a moment, he got on the Kioti, went to our stash of rocks, and brought one back.

Only when it was solid would Mike walk on it.

          I get back up to the house and hear an insane amount of buzzing coming from the new patio enclosure. There must be a bunch of bees in there! I think. I went around to open a screen for them and see it’s not bees after all.

          “What is it, then?” you wanna know.

          Horseflies! A whole herd of them! Okay! Okay! Maybe only eight or ten, but it sure sounded like a lot more!

          My insect book lists three kinds of horsefly. The American, the Black and the Three-spot. Of all the descriptions, only the Three-spot lists stripes.

          Deer, moose, and domestic livestock are this horsefly’s usual victims, but it’ll attack people, too.

          I didn’t let them out. 

          We walked several days this week, and by ‘we’ I mean me, Bondi, and Raini.

          Nearing the top of the hill, our get-a-drink-and-turn-around point.

          It was while giving Raini a drink (Bondi never wants one) that I noticed the starburst pattern of the seeds of the Birdsfoot Trefoil plant. They were prettier before Raini ran them over.

          Clouds moving in front of the sun. I took the shot just to see what I’d get. This is it. 

          We come right past another milkweed patch when we come home. I always look for bugs. Still no Monarch babies but I found a fly.

          The deer have been bedding down in the milkweed.

          Another night, taking the girls for their evening walk, Tiger started to follow. I threw a few rocks, never hitting him, and he chased the rocks. While he was busy, we took off. I looked back over my shoulder a few times but he didn’t follow.

Blackie followed us another night. I know he won’t turn around.

          I called Mike. “Will you take us out on the golf cart?”

          “Yeah. Where are you?”

          “Just at the old machine shed.”

          I started back to the house and was in the yard when Mike came to get us. He took us down the road a ways and dropped us off.

          We’re at the turnaround point. I reach into my bag and pull out the bottle of water and yogurt-cup-turned-Raini-drinking cup. I poured some water in her bowl and when I set it down for her, I see I’d inadvertently pulled a feather out of my bag, too. One I’d picked up to save.

I’ll pick it up after she has her drink. It wasn’t so much a thought as a picture in my head. A kind of mini movie. One of me putting the drinking stuff away, picking up the feather and stuffing it back in my bag. Raini had her drink and I turned to pick up the feather and it was gone! Just gone! I couldn’t see it anywhere! And I’m not talking about a little feather either. It was probably 18 centimeters long. I’m just jacking with ya. It was probably 7 inches or so.

“Maybe the wind blew it away?” you say.

I thought of that. It was a calm day. Very little breeze. And we’re talking probably less than a minute. It just couldn’t’ve gone far!

“What was so special about that feather?” you wanna know.

Nothing, really. It was just kinda pretty and in good shape. Feathers add interest to dried flower arrangements or I stick it in my feather bouquet.

It just baffles me how I lose stuff. I’m always losing my phone or forgetting where I left my camera, the checkbook, my coffee cup, my glasses, my purse, my shoes. Drop something on the floor and it disappears. Just ask Mike. Whenever he drops a pill on the floor it’s a major event. We call out the search and rescue team, replete with flashlights, get on hands and knees, and try to find where it rolled to. Sometimes we don’t find it.

I hear a car coming and give up the feather search.

          “Car! Car!” I say. We’re already off the road and I expected Raini to sit by my feet. She comes to me, walks right past, head low, and heads for the weeds twenty-five feet away.

          I smiled as I followed her.

          She got down in the weeds and peeked out as the car went past. 

          On the way home we take the other side of the road, although Raini thinks we should walk on the same side both ways.

          “Over here!” I tell her and she’ll saunter over.

          St. John’s Wort is blooming. Raini wanted to know what was so interesting.

          The Knapweed is starting to bloom.

          “Peg! There’s a bug in there!” you say.

          I know, right! You’ll never guess what he’s called. A Knapweed Flower Weevil!         

The last newly blooming wildflower I saw on this walkabout is the Tall Meadow Rue, also called Muskrat Weed. I had to walk through the weeds to get this shot for you.

          The next day, I call the girls to put on their harnesses so we can go for a walk and Bondi comes. She’s so much better about it these days. Not Raini. She ran into the Hydrangea bushes that surround a power pole in the dog run. I went around to the other side and Raini turns around. Back and forth we went, just like that bug on the milkweed, she was playing keep-away.

          I am so over this game!

          “Stay home then!” I told her and went out the gate with just Bondi. Raini started crying and carrying on. “Good!” I called back over my shoulder. “Maybe next time you’ll put your harness on!”

          The cats were following and I was only walking to exercise Raini. Without Raini there wasn’t much point. So, I just stayed on our property, went up to the barn and back down past the Bittersweet to the pond.

          I could hear Raini for a while, then I didn’t hear her. As we got closer to the house, I could hear her again.

          I came in the gate, unhooked Bondi, and saw the kitchen door was closed. Raini was making so much noise Mike shut the door, is what I thought.

          “Where’d you go?” Mike asked.

          “Just up on the hill. Raini wouldn’t put her harness on so I left her home.”

          “I know! She came tearing in through here, jumped up on me, then got on the end table and knocked everything off. I went looking for you and you were gone. So, I put her out and shut the door,” Mike explained.

          That evening, Raini let me put her harness on her. Traffic was light and we saw only one car. It was while we were on a long straight stretch of the road and I thought I’d wait until the car was a little closer before I gave the signal.

          Raini doesn’t need a signal. She saw the car, climbed down the one-foot drop-off and laid down.

          Tuesday, we made a trip to our out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere lumberyard. They didn’t have any eight-foot one-by-ten rough sawn boards to finish our patio enclosure but they had sixteen-footers.

          “Why don’t they cut them in half?” I asked.

          “I don’t know,” Mike said. “But she told me that I could if I wanted to but they wouldn’t do it.”

          They have a couple of huge orders for the one-by-ten eight-footers so that it would be months before we could get any. We got Big Red out and went after the sixteen-footers.

          I only took one picture. The windows were dirty. That dampens my desire to take pictures.

          A barn I’ve taken pictures of before gave up the ghost. He fell down. If I had the time and inclination, I’d show you the before picture. But sorting through thousands of photos to try and find it is not the way I want to spend our time together.

          Mike wanted to have the siding up and done before the guys came to install the garage door so we put a few boards up that afternoon.

The girls could see us and were having a fit.

“I could put a couple of boards up and let them come out,” Mike suggested.

Have you ever seen two cuter faces‽

          That afternoon Mike got the call he’d been waiting for. “They’ll be here tomorrow to put the garage door up.”

          We got that done just in the nick of time.

          The guys showed up the next day and put the cute little garage door up. They were fast and professional and it looks great. 

          “How’s the housebreaking coming?” you ask.

          It’s been almost two weeks since Raini’s made a mess in the house. With the patio now fully enclosed, Mike’s been leaving the living room door open. Saturday night the girls chased each other around the patio, through the house, around the dining room table, and back out on the patio again. Raini was doing the chasing coming in and Bondi was chasing when they went back out.

          Then the sweet aroma of dog poo came to us on the soft evening breeze. It seems that neither one of the girls recognizes the patio as part of the house. Only Raini got scolded because I didn’t find Bondi’s poop until the next morning. Yes, their poop looks different. Bondi, at least, had the good sense to poop away from the door, almost back in a corner, whereas Raini had pooped almost right in front of the door. I never thought Bondi would do that so I didn’t look for a second pile.

          I don’t care.

          I’ll clean up messes for as long as it takes. I love having the dogs. Maybe not so much when someone nips my nose, a needle-sharp tooth piercing the tender flesh on the inside, bringing tears to my eyes and making my nose bleed. Or the next morning, at 4:40 a.m. when a needle-sharp claw finds the tender flesh on the inside of the other nostril. No tears or blood that time, although it felt like the blood was a possibility.

          Raini loves to help when I water the flowers. Okay! Okay! Help might be a little misleading. The only help she is, is she helps herself to a spray of water. She loves to nip at it and get all wet.

          I didn’t think much about letting her play with the water. Then a news report came on the TV about a woman who got her dog a pool to splash around in. The dog drank so much water he died.

          “You can die from too much water?” Lamar asked.

          It’s hard to believe, but you can die from water intoxication.

          “Now I’m worried about Raini,” I told Miss Rosie. “I won’t let her play in it for very long anymore.”

          “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” she assured me.

          So, I won’t. I know it’s rare and we’ll go back to playing in the water on hot afternoons.

          But the sweetest thing about Raini — Do you want to know the sweetest thing about her?

          The sweetest thing about Raini is her desire to be wherever I am. If I’m working on the computer, she’ll lay in her bed under my desk,

          I hope the photo makes you laugh. It does me.

          In the kitchen, moving around, chopping meat, washing hands, getting dishes down, pans out, utensils, going from counter to stove to sink to fridge, if I pause for fifteen seconds, I’ll feel soft little doggie fur brush my legs as she steps over my feet and settles between them. I just step over her and leave her lay. But Raini’ll watch for the pause, then she moves right in again. It amuses me. You’d think she’d give up after a while but she doesn’t.    

    

          We made a trip over to Towanda to pick up cat worm meds. While we were there, I wanted to go to the thrift store. We were early and the store wouldn’t open for another twenty minutes.

          “You want to go for a walk?” I asked.

          Mike thought about it for a moment. “Sure.”

          We walked down to the where my beautiful friend Joanie works. The courthouse.

          Mike read the inscription, then we turned around and went back to the car.

          “What’s that box for?” I asked.

          “I don’t know,” Mike said.

          I got close enough for my old eyes to read the faded plate.

          “It’s for fines.”

          I wonder if people still use it. 

          At the thrift store they had three gowns on the twenty-five-cent rack. A great deal — if you could wear the gown or repurpose the material. 

          Oh! I got pictures of the Green Heron this week!

          We were on the golf cart, checking the water level in the pond and we scared him up. He flew to the other side of the pond and sat down.

          Mike and I were talking and the next time we looked, the heron was gone. We continued on around the pond.

          “There he is!” Mike exclaimed.

          “Where‽”

          “Down there,” and he pointed.

          By the time I got my camera up, he’d taken off only to land a few feet away.

          I took a few pictures and we started to move again. 

          The heron decided to skedaddle.

          The Green Heron is a relatively small bird. The adult body is about 17 inches and the neck is often pulled in tight.

Green herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. They commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. They’ll drop it onto the surface of the water to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the green heron then grabs and eats the fish. When Green Herons catch large frogs, they drown ‘em before swallowing ‘em whole.

          “Peg, you haven’t talked about your crafts at all yet. What’s going on?” you ask.

          Oh my gosh! What a time of it I’ve had!

          I’m working on several boxes at once. Mostly because I keep getting ideas on how to improve the design.

I was working on a commissioned box for Miss Rosie when I get an idea on how to make the hinged lid better. I couldn’t wait. I had to get up and try it.

Then I had another idea and had to try that.

And that’s how I ended up with three!

Actually, I have another idea I want to try but I think I’ll wait until I finish one or two of these.

I often let my mind wander as I’m working. Sometimes it wanders when I should be paying closer attention!

I was cutting the side arched pieces and because all my boxes are double-strength, I cut four. I glued two together and when I went to glue the other two, I could only find one!

I have no idea how I lost the fourth one. I looked everywhere for it. I even doubted I cut it. I sorted through the scraps and there’s proof I cut four! But where it went, I haven’t a clue!

I cut another one.

I put the box together and the lid didn’t fit right. I had my one-centimeter overhang on the top and nothing on the bottom. After examining all my pieces, I concluded that it was my spine piece that was crooked and not the lid itself. I am very careful to make my cuts straight but what happened, happened after I had the spine on. My bright idea was to bevel the spine piece to accommodate the plaster of Paris so it wouldn’t chip off when you opened the lid. Sounds like it might work, right? Well, I guess when I was beveling, I didn’t bevel straight. I’d have to tear the box apart and remake the spine piece.

That’s when I found it!

“Found what?” you ask.

Found my missing curved end. I’d glued three together!

Aye-yi-yi!

I guess I’ll have to stop daydreaming while I’m working.

It was while I was putting this one back together (with new spine and side pieces) that I thought to make a ‘box’ inside. I’ve been leaving them open the whole way back into the curved spine of the box, but these big ol’ man-hands of mine don’t fit inside very well. Add a brush and it’s pretty cramped quarters inside there. I thought this would be easier.

“How do you like it?” I asked Miss Rosie.

“I like it,” she said.

Now I’m conflicted.

Something else I’m playing around with is the hardness of my plaster of Paris. I’m not really having any problems with the way I’ve been making them, but I want to make them better. Plaster of Paris in and of itself is soft and brittle. What if I add glue?

I had to start someplace so I made a mixture of…

Wait! Do you really care about this stuff? I kinda feel like I’m just rattling on.

I’ll tell you what. Let’s end this week with one of those beautiful sunset pictures from the beautiful mountains of northeast Pennsylvania.

And a closeup of the same pic.

Done!