Tag: preying mantis
Diplomacy, Gerrymandering and Ice Cream
Friday will be a very long day. Excuse my absence from the site. I’ll do my best to catch up later.
Well, I’ll have to say I was shocked that Hamas gave up the twenty living hostages. I am a little suspicious of their claiming to not have all of the remains of the dead hostages. Maybe they’re still holding onto some of the living that way. But all in all, it seems like the Arabs are applying the screws to Hamas and that is a good sign. Trump is getting some credit even from the leftist media and that is also encouraging.
And I hear that the Supreme Court is about to declare some parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Specifically, I think they’ll say that the present maximizing of black representation is a form of anti-white discrimination and that may be an incredible change to the breakdown of seats between the Democrats and Republicans in places like Alabama and Mississippi. Good. Gerrymandering makes a 60/40 state like Massachusetts into a 100/0 state in terms of representation. There are zero Republicans in the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts. Why should there be any Democratic reps in places like Oklahoma or Utah? Just draw the district maps so that the Republican suburbs and exurbs out number the urban Democrat strongholds and presto change-o no Democrat reps! Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Massachusetts!
Now I hear Trump is going to meet with Zelensky and then give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles. That’s a very powerful weapons system. And then I hear he’s going to meet with Putin. Well, he’s really going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to end this war. But let him try. I just hope we don’t start taking incoming from Russian surrogates. I was just beginning to hope Trump was serious about making the world more peaceful. Fingers crossed.
Even though we’ve already had frost on the ground Camera Girl was able to find a live preying mantis in the yard and now it’s taking up residence in our house. She even bought some crickets at Petco and hopes to keep it alive for the duration. I warned her this might be a very short reprieve. I think they’re not programmed to live very long after maturity. Well, I hope to take some macro shots of our little houseguest before he kicks off.
Unbelievably we’re still getting raspberries from the patch and we had them today with vanilla ice cream. But we’re down to the nitty-gritty. I think we’ll be getting a hard freeze in the next week or so. And I’ve taken a bunch of photos of the wolfbane because by Halloween they’ll be wilted too. Today the bees and the flies were the only insect life I saw around the yard.
So, a beautiful September and beginning of October is transitioning to more wintery weather but spirits are high and with any luck I’ll survive my three-week ordeal with First Selectman Cthulhu with only superficial damage.
Excelsior!
15AUG2025 – Photo of the Day
07AUG2025 – Photo of the Day
Serenity Now
So today was finally the day. I had an appointment to get that bad tooth pulled. I drove myself there with Camera Girl riding shotgun. The understanding was she’d drive home after I had been dosed with enough lidocaine to allow me to chew razor blades.
We got there and the dental assistant immediately found a problem. My dentist had listed the wrong tooth. So, there were more x-rays and phone calls and running around in circles. Finally, the oral surgeon walked in looked at the x-ray, looked at the tooth and said, “Serenity now!” So of course I replied, “Insanity later.” And he started to laugh uproariously. If I were the type to worry maybe I might have taken all of this as a bad sign. But I’m a Seinfeld fan and I figured that a Middle Eastern oral surgeon who likes Seinfeld must have hidden depths of wisdom.
Well, the man did his job flawlessly. He numbed my mouth completely, pulled the tooth in one twist of his wrist and installed the implant post in nothing flat. He was good at his job and cheerful to boot. And a few hours later he called my home to check in on me and answer questions. He was like the opposite of my dentist who can’t do anything and avoids contact like the plague.
But that implant post means that for the next few days I’ll probably be living off “Ensure” and very carefully avoiding the healing tissues around the implant. Also, I’ll be on antibiotics for another week so I won’t be at my most robust.
When I got home, I decided to walk around the yard to take my mind off my medical issues and I came upon one of the preying mantis egg sacs that I planted on various branches six or eight weeks ago. And what do you know? The little critters hatched out today.
Now there’s scant assurance that even one of these tiny critters will make it to Labor Day. There are just so many insects, spiders, other invertebrates, frogs, toads. salamanders, snakes and even rodents and birds just waiting to devour them that if two of them survive it will be a miracle.
But I like to bet on long shots. When school ends and Princess Sack of Potatoes arrives to visit for the summer, I hope to point out some thriving mantids in various areas of the yard. She is particularly enamored of the preying mantis ever since she saw one in a story book called “The Very Quiet Cricket.”
Tonight “High Noon” was on tv so Camera Girl and I watched it. I had forgotten that Grace Kelly (playing his wife) actually shot one of the outlaws in the back and scratched the face of the head villain just as he was about to shoot Gary Cooper.
Now I’ve been aware of the political leanings of the director of “High Noon” and how the townspeople leaving the Marshall to his fate was a metaphor for the lack of support that the blacklisted film industry people got during the McCarthy era. Well, I’ve never placed much importance to this subtext. But I will state my opinion that Gary Cooper’s character getting help from his wife in the way he did brands him as terminally low energy. He might as well have been Jeb Bush. A total loser; very sad.
Well, anyway it was a very successful day and hopefully my recovery will proceed smoothly. Serenity now.
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 7 – The Next Generation
Well as Milo intimated a month ago, our rescued Mantis has laid an egg case.
Currently the proud mother is still alive although I suspect that after laying her eggs her life span may be limited. I’ll put the egg case in a cold area for the winter and then put it outside in spring. Princess Sack of Potatoes will probably equate this phenomenon to the story of Charlotte’s Web that we recently watched. Well, I’ll have to say the project has really paid dividends.
Here’s mom.
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 6 – Extra Innings
Last night I read that this week we’re expecting a hard frost. Well, it’s November after all and nothing unusual about that. I mentioned to Camera Girl that I saw a dragonfly circling the yard the other day and now it’ll be the end of his time with the frost.
This morning Camera Girl was getting ready to go out on an errand and she said she’d stop at the top of the driveway and put a letter in the mailbox. I said I need some air. Give it to me. As I was walking back toward the house she is walking toward me instead of driving out in her car and yelling something excitedly. She is an enthusiastic woman. What she was saying was that she saw a praying mantis sitting on top of a gallon water jug that I had left on the porch. She asked me to catch it and save it indoors.
And sure enough, there it was. I scooped it up and put it in a convenient cage (the former home of one of my grandsons’ hermit crabs).
And the new plan is to see how long he can live in an indoor environment. I’ll try to offer him raw hamburger but if that fails we’ll get some crickets at the pet store. Well, Princess Sack of Potatoes will get a chance to study a praying mantis more closely than I thought.
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 5 – The Final Chapter
Well, this is the finale of the great mantis experiment. Yesterday Camera Girl used her hawk-eye super vision to find an adult praying mantis in the jungle-like weeds of her vegetable garden. In fact, the mantis was on one of her Japanese eggplant plants. Princess Sack-of-Potatoes will know that praying mantises really do exist although unfortunately they do not talk in an English-accented throaty whisper as they do in an Eric Carle picture book video. But they are indeed monsters that inhabit the tiny world of our garden. And that’s a fun thing for a little child to discover.
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 4 – Another Sighting
My grandson was over for a swim in the pool and he saw one of the mantises on a milkweed. So my granddaughter had a good view of this one today. The project goes well!
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 3 – Dr. Livingstone I Presume!
So the first survivor has made his appearance in the yard. This one found his way into the stella d’oro daylilies in the swimming pool area. May he be the first of many that show up. My little granddaughter will find out that praying mantises don’t talk like they do in her Eric Carle books but they are very exciting for an insect.
Good hunting little fellow.
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 1
Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 2 – The Arrival