Category: Insects

Keep Away the Dragons!

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34.7º N 92.2º W. Little Rock, in Central Arkansas, in the United States

6/19/17 – 6/24/17

 

Midsummer

Not in Enchanted Habitat, for sure

This week held Midsummer’s Eve; the Summer Solstice; the year’s shortest night followed by the longest day. Here in Enchanted Habitat this marker of Earth’s cycles came and went almost unremarked, as it always does. Well, no, the TV weatherpersons do always mention it. And Wikipedia told me Unitarian Universalists celebrate the summer solstice as a religious holiday. But to my knowledge there were no bonfires here with leaping, dancing, and chanting pertaining to the fecundity of nature; and if ever there have been, nobody told me.

It was only this year that I first realized that we, here, as an overall culture, are among those who ignore the Summer Solstice. When I did think about that (who knows why?) I was disappointed in us at first, but then I got curious. Why is it that we don’t get excited about Midsummer?

Here are some facts I found out. They don’t answer the question, but I think they’re interesting.

European Christianity attempted to bring the great ancient pagan observance of Midsummer under rule and call it St. John’s day. Virtually all of the Western and Eastern European countries’ and Canada’s local populations celebrate Midsummer/St. John’s Day in their own various ways, usually including a big bonfire.

The specific purpose of the bonfires, nowadays, is whatever one wants it to be, the meaning is unspecified. Unspecified, because one wouldn’t be wanting, nowadays, to say it’s to keep away the dragons/bad luck/evil spirits/witches.

Wikipedia listed a few locales in the U.S. as having their own more-or-less-institutionalized observances. None of those places is near here.

Back to the question of Enchanted Habitat’s seemingly-inexplicable indifference to Midsummer. We here are certainly not lacking in archetypal knowledge and tendencies. Scratch a native-born central Arkansan and you will find a secret streak of ancient psyche every time. Secret even from the owner. And that, I conclude, is the answer to the question. Who we really are runs too close to the surface. We dare not turn our real selves loose at Midsummer, and therefore we don’t even think of it.

Friends in Really Low Places

This apparent moonscape is part of my backyard. The photo is cropped from a broader area showing probably a dozen of the round holes.  Each hole is small, about the size of the tip of your little finger. They are bumblebee holes. At least I think that’s what the bees are. If you stand and watch the holes for ten minutes, you will see what appear to be bumblebees arriving one at a time and then cleverly disappearing headfirst down a hole that seems too small for it. Soon you will see a bee emerge and lift slowly up into the air and then zoom off fast, like a wee fuzzy jet plane.

I’ve seen this all my life; it’s a common sight here. Always, I’ve assumed each bee has its own little house, does its own thing. Now I’m wondering if all those little houses are connected down there under the earth. From what I can read without devoting my life to it, there are many many kinds of bumblebees, and all are colony creatures, and the members of a colony live together and have a queen, etc., same as honeybees only not so organized. And nowhere in my reading have I found a reference to single little holes near each other in the bare dirt.

If any readers know the answer to what’s going on down there, or not going on, kindly enlighten us.

My second underground friend, here, stays at least part of the time in this hole.  I think the hole goes all the way under the house. If you guessed chipmunk, you get a blue ribbon. I think he’s the same one who has another hole near the fence. That one, he has to defend. I’ve seen him attack a full grown squirrel that came too near that hole. Mr. C. Munk likes to use the patio as a shortcut on his way here and there, no matter that we scare each other all the time. This is how I found out that chipmunks scream. I read that their screaming helps them elude predators by surprising and confusing them. I think someone made that up. They probably just scream when they’re scared,  same as we do.

Prime Time to Dine Alfresco

My friends will tell you I will never eat outside if I have a choice. I’m very interested in fauna, but not in my food. I included this picture because other people say they like to eat alfresco. Enjoy!

Photo, Bonfire in Freiburg im Breisgau by Ralf Johann, in Wikipedia

Copyright 2017 Ruth Byrn

Akashic Pasta

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34.7º N 92.2º W. Little Rock, in Central Arkansas, in the United States

5/15/17 – 5/26/17

High Calorie Out-of-this-World One-Dish Pasta Meal

Here is a recipe that came to me from the akasha and is good eating.

If you are an experienced cook you will know the proportions you like for the ingredients. If inexperienced, be generous with everything and then adjust according to your taste. If you are watching your weight you should not even read this.

Kalamata olives enchanted.jpg

Ingredients
Penne Pasta, cooked and drained, but still hot
Smoked Gouda Cheese, cubed. Prep it ready to stir in and go melty in the hot drained pasta.
Fajita Chicken Strips, cooked, cubed. (If frozen, defrost.)
Tomatoes,  whole medium fresh (or canned) diced. Include the juice.
Green Peas, fresh (or frozen and defrosted), uncooked or slightly cooked.
Kalamata Olives, whole, pitted, drained
Mayonnaise (be generous)
Seasoned Rice Vinegar (be generous)
Salt

Directions
Stir everything together in a big bowl.

Good Manners in Enchanted Habitat

A friend who grew up in California and moved here observes that we in Enchanted Habitat have at least three nicenesses she’s never noticed anywhere else.

One, I have named the Mandatory Entryway Compliment (MECompliment).
When we as a guest enter someone else’s home, we always, somewhere near the front door, find a way to say something that sounds admiring about the place. Such as, “Oh your yard is so nice!” or “Oh, hardwood floors are so wonderful, aren’t they!” Women usually include the exclamation points. Also, even if it is the tenth time we’ve been there we find still again something else nice to say, or at least find a new way to say a previous thing.

Only if the householder might be our mother or BFF might we exempt ourselves from the MECompliment.

Or if we want to be covertly rude.

Next, there is Making Small Talk About The Weather (MSTATWeather). My grandmother taught me how to do it and why, and this ability has served me all my life. But it only works in the company of people who also know how to do it. Unfortunately not everyone does. It would help us if more did. It takes at least two to tango here, and if you are the only one doing MSTATWeather, and the others think instead that what you are doing is really talking about the weather, then you’re going to get some odd looks if you persist.

 (Never expect a Californian to MSTATWeather. California doesn’t have weather to begin with. Here, we have real grist for the mill.)

The reason for MSTATWeather is the same as one of the reasons for MECompliment: it gives people something socially safe to talk about. Further, MSTATWeather can be counted on as an inexhaustible subject if need be. The MECompliment is not meant to last as a discussion topic, and is is about five degrees toward personal, so you have to be a tad careful. But the MECompliment is the one that also has secondary purpose. When you say a MECompliment to your host/ess, you are sending a clear signal that your feeling about them is positive–without being obsequious. Is that a clever folkway, or what!

Our third niceness reported by my friend, I call Never Taking The Last Piece (NTTLPiece). No one ever taught me NTTLPiece, I just always knew it. I assume it is a genetically transmitted behavior. The last hors d’oeuvre, the last ear of corn, the last glassful of wine in the bottle, the last spoonful of the mashed potatoes. No matter how much we secretly want it, we will decline it. And then there it is, one lonely little serving that the hostess has to do something with after everyone goes. Unless someone in the party was not from here.

My Californian friend tole me this true story:
After a potluck, one little square of exquisite homemade lemon bar remained. A woman was trying to get someone, anyone, to take it. This woman genuinely didn’t want it herself, and she was not from here originally. My Californian friend said to her, “You’re not going to get anyone to take that. They’re all from here and they never take the last piece of anything.” The woman said, “Oh God, that’s why my husband does that!”

From the Creatures Gazette

Cicadas Gone ‘Til 2028

Last appearing in May/June 2015, the 13-year cicadas will not appear again for 11 years more.  Although this strain is only one of the cicada types inhabiting central Arkansas, it is likely the most numerous in terms of individual insects. Until 2028 fewer children will find and shudder at and show each other empty husks left hanging on tree trunks after the nymphs dig themselves out of the ground and free themselves to be real noisy insects.

Hooray for the Home Grown Farmers’ Markets!

They’re here and open again! Worth every penny. The only other thing to say is, I’ll be so glad when it’s time for tomatoes. 

Copyright 2017 Ruth Byrn

You Win Some, You Lose Some

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34.7º N 92.2º W. Little Rock, in Central Arkansas, in the United States

4/23/17 – 4/27/17

The Royal “Paulina” Tree

A block from my house is a flowering tree 60 feet tall of great beauty. I was alert for it to bloom this year, which it did and has just finished. Here are its blossoms.  Photo credit: By Famartin – Own work, CC BY-SA3.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33009600

Despite its size and beauty I only noticed it last year when it was in bloom, and I began asking about it. I’ve lived here all my life and have never seen one like it that I remember. I learned that we commonfolk here in Enchanted Habitat call it variously. Princess Tree, Royal Princess Tree, Empress, Royal Empress, Paulina, Royal Paulina, Empress Paulina, and so on. Mix and match, take your pick. Wikipedia names it Paulownia tomentosa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa

Also according to Wiki, the Paulownia is native to China, and probably got to the U.S. in the late 1800s when its seeds were used as packing for goods shipped here. It likes the eastern third of the U.S. It can’t grow in the shade of other trees, but where it does grow it tries to take over and make a grove, multiplying by seeds and also sprouts on limbs and roots. Supposedly even fire and surface mowing can’t eliminate it unless repeated several times. If that’s true I wonder why we don’t have more of them.
The leaves are huge and are said to make good fodder for cows. The seed pods are pretty. The wood of this tree was and maybe still is used by Asian musical instrument makers. This fact reminds me of our own people of an older generation who used the beautiful dogwood tree for making fiddles and mandolins.

People who are against invasive non-native species don’t like the Paulownia; people who are into showy trees for ornamental landscape gardening, do. Chinese legend says the phoenix will land only in this tree, and then only if the current ruler is a good one. On both counts: I wish. When the time comes for her to land, I’ll be watching down the street.

The Hauling Garden
The moral of a story is more important than the story, right? So I’m giving you the bottom line first: If you want to grow vegetables that taste like anything, don’t grow them in potting soil.

Now the story.

My back yard has no place for a vegetable garden. It’s big, but shady. There are sunny spots but they only last half a day at most. Two years ago it came to me to create a moveable garden, a container garden on wheels, “So that the plants could follow the sun” would be the euphemism. Or in the vernacular, so that I could haul them around. I bought the biggest wagon I thought I could pull. It was black. It had deep sides. I bored holes in it for water to drain out. Here is how I envisioned the setup.

The wagon perfectly held the six huge plastic pots I bought. The pots held enough potting soil to exceed the remainder of the $budget, but oh well. Then I put in the seedlings. I thought, “And because the wagon’s sides are so deep, I can jury rig the supports these tomato plants will need.”

Of course tomatoes.

Vegetable=Tomato. Summer=Homegrown Tomato. Same as so many others in Enchanted Habitat and elsewhere: give me home-grown tomatoes first, last, and most of all. After I prioritized the list of tomato varieties I wanted, there wasn’t room for frills like beans or peppers. I rigged the supports. Store-bought tomato cages would not do for my tomatoes. I was sure they would be big. Scaffolding was what they would need.

And lo and behold, for once it looked like my actuality was turning out kind of like my plan. A little tweaking here and there as we went along, but after awhile there it was: prolific robust tomato plants eight feet tall, flowering and fruiting.
When I hauled them, it was one careful step at a time. The rig was heavy, and top heavy. The neighbors watched from their windows. But I didn’t care. The stink bugs loved them too, and I won that battle. Those tomatoes were beautiful.

But every one, of every variety, tasted like cardboard.

I stopped making myself eat them after they convinced me they were all only for show. Seeing them lined up on the kitchen counter looking like prize winners until they began to sag got to be more than I could bear, so I stopped harvesting them.
Denouement: For the last two growing seasons my source of home-grown tomatoes has been the Real farmer’s market across the river. So I have not been deprived of them, only the deep pleasure of growing them. And slowly I’ve been healing from my disappointment. By next year I might be ready to try the whole thing again with real dirt.

From The Creatures Gazette

Dog Rejects Insect

Anopheles, Aedes Return

Who Who Whooooo Left This On The Front Porch Last Night?
I believe it was an Eastern Screech Owl. It’s not a big feather, and they are the smallest of the four kinds of owls who are permanent residents of Enchanted Habitat. I found some nice information about our owls on this website. http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jan/27/whooo-what-when-where-and-why-some-our-most/

The permanent owls in Arkansas are: Barn, Eastern Screech, Great Horned, and Barred. All except the Screech are big birds, 16″ to 22″ long. The Eastern Screech is only 8-1/2″, about the size of a quail. I’ve had only one opportunity ever to get a good look at a Screech Owl, and they are truly magical-looking little creatures. The one I saw came one night to sit on a wooden fence near the back patio of the house where I lived then. The night was dark, but there were yard lights, and the owl was sitting only about twelve feet from me. It stayed there for about fifteen minutes, apparently regarding me. It seemed very calm. If it was looking at, or watching for, something else, I was unable to discover what that might be. I was the only living thing out there that I know of. After a long time I decided to find out how close I could come to it. Moving slowly, I got to three feet away before if kind of shook itself and flew off. The next day I learned that something profound had happened to someone in my family.

Copyright 2017 Ruth Byrn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fire Ants, Fauna, and a Magic Wand

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34.7º N 92.2º W. Little Rock, in Central Arkansas, in the United States

4/19/17 – 4/22/17

The Fire Ant Gauntlet

Watch this if you dare:

Want to guess how I got my ruler back?
Now let me tell you that three feet beyond this fire ant hill is another just like it, and then another, and another, and more–yes, truly–and this video was filmed not in the Central American jungle but in a trendy section of west Little Rock. About twenty of these giant nests of aggressive ants exist on both sides of a street directly behind a posh shopping center. I don’t like being gloomy but the truth is, that street has ‘way more than enough fire ants to kill a human, or dog, or whatever happened to be there and become incapacitated.
Fire ants haven’t always been in central Arkansas; only since the early 1950’s. They are invasive, and now inhabit the southern two-thirds of the state. For how they got here and why we can’t get rid of them, here is an information source:
http://www.aad.arkansas.gov/imported-fire-ants1
I wondered, Do they bite, or do they sting? I found out the answer is both and now I like them even less.

Creatures More Pleasant: Three-toed Box Turtle Terrapene triunguls
The charming box turtles are out of hibernation now, basking in the spring sun and foraging for berries, flowers, fungi, insects, worms . . . This little one was in the middle of a city street today, haulin’ ass fast as her wee three-toed feet could take her. I was in the car with a friend and we stopped and picked her up and took her away in the direction we hoped she was intending to go–they are determined about their chosen direction–and released her in a safer place. She’s one of the smallest I’ve seen.
I had not realized until today that I’ve never seen any really teensy baby box turtles. The reference below says the babies are secretive and rarely seen, and are something of a mystery to science. Also I learned they can live 50 years.  http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/Turtle/TerrapeneTriunguis )
Several different people have told me they had a box turtle take up residence in their yard that stayed for years and became a pet. In my yard they make it plain they’re just passing through. I’ve tried to please them into staying, but no luck. Maybe I’ve had too many terriers in the past. Their little shades are still here, the terriers, I almost see them frequently.

It’s Planting Time . . . Isn’t It?  Watch Out for Adages
We should question adages. One that comes to mind this time of year: The time to plant beans is when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrel’s ear. What exactly kind of oak tree? We have 31 kinds. Some have leaves twenty times as big as others. And all kinds of oak leaves develop in fast forward; at my age, the blink of an eye. ‘Way too short a window of time. I don’t just stand by, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting to plant beans. I have to think about it first. And then untangle myself from other business, then go get some beans from the Farmers Association, and so on. The winky time period applies also to the other adage we  have here about beans: Plant beans on Good Friday. One day? And by “planting” do we mean “starting seeds indoors” or “transplanting seedlings outdoors”?
Forget the adages. There is help for off-and-on gardeners like me: there is the OLD FARMER’S ALMANAC. Online! Free! http://www.almanac.com/
If you live in the U.S. or Canada, you can quickly pull up a lovely simple planting chart customized to your location. Here is a clip of it. It will show, in little colored graphics, the time ranges–yes whole ranges of time–for when to sow what, indoors and outdoors. And then it will show when you will be able to reap what you sowed. It includes about 30 favorite vegetables, and uses historical data from your local weather station to calculate your best range of planting dates. This first class website also has heaps more interesting information, which I’ll leave you to uncover for yourself if you haven’t already.
Here in Enchanted Habitat we enjoy an enchanted gardening climate:  just about any vegetable you could want will grow except, sadly, avocados.

Another Bad Adage
Before we forget about adages, there is a different one I especially caution you about because it could get you injured. Someone somewhere sometime once dreamed it that Cows can’t kick backward. Or maybe the airhead just assumed it. Cows can seem ungainly. Whoever fabricated this told it for a fact, and it then went the old timey equivalent of viral.
You can verify for yourself that this false belief spread and still persists. Do an online search for “Can cows kick backward?” and see what you get. When I was told it as a child, I believed it and remembered it. That’s because my very mother said it. Then long afterward I bought a little farm and soon a Jersey cow. I understood zilch about any of that in the beginning. Fortunately the cow was not only sweet but also smart. She knew right away I was just a doofus who would feed her a lot and let her darling baby suck all the milk it wanted. When I scrunched around  between and behind them in the close quarters of her stall, she didn’t kick me. Later, in the barn lot, I watched veeerrry thoughtfully as she aimed expert powerful warning strikes in the direction of the geese who were thinking about nipping her and her baby in the rear.

Cow Stick . . . or Magic Wand?
One thing does lead to another. Speaking of milk cows, before we leave the subject let me show you my mother’s mother’s mother’s cow stick. She loved her cows. (Somehow that trait skipped two generations and then came to rest in me. I also inherited her uncontrollable Scots-Irish hair.) Even when she was very old she still kept two milk cows. Every morning, rain or shine, almost until the day she died, she escorted them from their little barn into the woods-pasture to graze. In the late afternoons she went and got them and walked them home. My great grandfather whittled this cow stick for her. You can see by its size how mean she wasn’t. I figured out, you don’t actually use a cow stick, you just have one. It’s a metaphorical thing. This magic baton made its way to me. I employ it once in a while, although not to do with cows.
Here’s my great-grandmother, along with great-grandfather and their daughter who was my maternal grandmother.