Yum, Wasps!

A few weeks ago a large hole appeared near my garden one morning.  I checked it out, wondering if the groundhogs were expanding their territory, but found this instead:

That's what's left of a yellow jacket nest.  The combs were empty of larvae, and a couple confused wasps crawled and buzzed around the nest.  Whatever snacked on the larvae must have done it hours before, because the rest of the hive had evacuated.  For all the years I've seen yellow jackets crawling into the ground, I've never seen a nest dug up.  I had to check this out.

To the Google!  (This is where I get all tingly!  I love research!)

It turns out the larvae are a favorite snack of raccoons and skunks, both of which are plentiful around here.  So maybe someone had a nice meal.  Or maybe they got there too late, after the larvae had hatched.  Either way, the nest was doomed.  At the end of summer the old queen dies and the new queens fly off to mate and ride out the winter until they can begin a new nest in spring.  There were probably thousands of wasps in there.  Fascinating!  But I'm glad I didn't know that this summer when I was picking rhubarb a foot away from that hole.

Romantic Death in the Afternoon

Don't you hate when your meal is interrupted?  Of course, it might not happen if you don't dine right at someone's doorstep.  This guy decided to take his lunch date to the warm metal strip beside my patio doorwall:

The big guy is a bee killer fly, and his dinner date is a biting stable fly.  The bee killer prefers honeybees, but you know how it is - sometimes you have to settle for less.  So he's sucking the essense from his little friend, who you need not feel sorry for, since she's pretty vicious herself.

Sometimes dinner with a friend is romantic.  Sometimes it's just dinner.

Beginnings and Endings

I finally wrote The End on the second book in my Barringer's Pass, CO series!  (Wait, that calls for a few more !!!!!!!  There.)  I wrote it figuratively, anyway; they really don't want the words on the manuscript, but after 370 pages I have to have some reward.  I write it, then delete.

I'd show you a picture, but it would be a photograph of my computer screen showing a 790 KB Word file.  Yawn.  So I have two photos of other beginnings and endings I found this week.

These cute little buggers are baby barn swallows, on their mud-built nest that hangs on the rafters of my barn.  The nest was built last year, so I figure the parents are either lazy or smart, skipping the tedious step of patching together straw and mud.

I took this picture Monday as the babies crouched just beneath the metal roof, scarfing down bugs from Mom and Dad and thinking about flying.  I strung a rope beneath the nest so they won't flutter down to the barn floor - cat territory.  Tuesday they were gone and the parents were dive-bombing the barn cats, so the kids were obviously nearby.  They returned that night.

This is, unfortunately, an ending.  It's a luna moth, about 4 inches across, the first one I've ever found even though they're considered common.  He was just inside the horses' run-in this morning, able to feebly move his legs, but nothing more.  You know I had to Google him, so here's the relevant fact: lunas only live about a week.  They have no mouth.  Their only purpose at this stage is to mate, lay eggs, and die.  I assume this guy wore himself out romancing the lady lunas and has laid down to die.  It was about to be a horrible death by horse hoof, so I moved him to the side.  RIP.

Milkweed and Monarchs

The green theme on this page is a bit overwhelming, but here's more chlorophyl for you - a post about another weed I allow to thrive in my pasture: milkweed.

Horses don't like milkweed any more than they like those daisies in my previous post.  But monarch butterflies do.  In fact, monarchs need milkweed.  (Brace yourselves; science Googling ahead.)  They lay their eggs on the plant, the caterpillar larvae feed on the plant, they form their coccoons there, and the butterfly sips its nectar, along with a few other flowers.  In fact, the butterflies even gain a unique protection from eating milkweed as larvae - they take in cardiac glycosides, which makes them taste bad and is poisonous to birds.  (I don't know how, but I'm guessing the cardiac part is a clue.)

Monarchs migrate, the only butterfly that does.  Last year storms in Mexico killed many of the butterflies.  It takes 2 or 3 generations for the surviving monarchs to get this far north, but I haven't seen a single monarch yet, and this is when they should be here.  (Have you?  Let me know!)  For those who make it, I've got a smorgasbord of milkweed waiting in my pasture.

Characters and What Lies Beneath

I'm just beginning to write a new book now, and letting the characters take shape in my mind.  It's a process of layering - outward actions are driven by inner motivatons and conflicts.  What lies beneath the surface is what determines the real character.

So this was timely:  Hauling manure past a large bush in the pasture, I saw what the outer leaves had hidden all summer - a baldfaced hornet nest.

 The hornets are gone now, or dead.  But it might explain a couple hard lumps Remi had on his neck earlier this year.

What's hidden under the surface in not always nice - in people and shrubbery!

Fourteen Years of Spiders

This is not creepy-crawly, I promise.

There's an old cabinet in our barn that was there when we bought this farm.  It was once a decent piece of furniture, with its wide shelves and sliding glass doors.  Probably sat in someone's dining room.  But somewhere along the way it absorbed a spill that give it a vague odor of insecticide when the doors are left closed.  That must have been it for the dining room.  We let it stay in the barn, but only use it to store metal things like chicken water cans and water heaters.  With the doors open.  It stands near the wall, with some old stall doors we stuck behind it 14 years ago.

This morning, for some reason, I looked behind the cabinet while the morning sun was shining in the open barn doors at just the right angle to hit behind the cabinet.  And for a moment fourteen years of spider webs were touched by brilliance, turning dusty old webs to spun silver.

The End of Summer

There are signs.  These are three I noticed this week:

Wooly bear caterpillars are all over the place, usually crawling on the ground inches from my feet.  Once I see one I can't not look down for fear of crushing one of the furry little things.  Me walking across the pasture looks like step-step-awkward, startled hop-step-step.  I know the caterpillars just turn into plain-vanilla Isabella Tiger Moths (the fanciest thing about them is their great name) but they're so cute.  And I know they would make a big squish.  So I watch the ground and do the wolly bear dance.

Another sign - my bats are gone.  All summer they dip and dive around the pasture at dusk.  Just for you, I looked up facts so we can all be smarter.  The little brown bat (my guys) eat hundreds of insects each night, which explains why they crowd the airspace over my manure pile.  Lots of flies and mosquitoes there.  When flying insects die out, the bats migrate south and hibernate.  So my missing bats is a sign that summer, with its delicious mosquitos, is over.  But the same guys will be back next year, because bats live up to 30 years in the wild - I know, I was shocked, too!

One more bittersweet sight to mark the end of summer - my neighbor's hay field is finally cut and baled in rolls.  They used to use it for their horses, and then for another neighbor's cows.  But both the horses and cows are gone now, and they just cut it down at the end of the season and take the bales away - I don't know where.  But I know these bales mark the end of the hay season.  Taking the picture at the end of the day seemed appropriate.

Monsters!

I mentioned the horrors of horse flies in my last post, no doubt causing many of you to snicker at my wimpiness.  Allow me to defend myself.

Horse flies are not regular flies. They are mutant, blood-sucking monsters, trolling the pasture for victims. And they do not die easily. Smacking them with your hand merely stuns them. You must then grind them underfoot until they are mere pieces of fly. Or stab them in the heart with a silver dagger - whichever is easiest. This means it is rare to find a dead, intact horse fly. But I did! The little demon was on our deck, kicking back with a cool drink, taking a break from the blood fest in the pasture. And my daughter smacked him with a flyswatter. Hard. Twice. And he died. So for demonstration purposes, I killed a regular housefly (yes, I took a life needlessly) and placed it beside the horsefly and took their picture:

See?  Now are you scared?