87/365 - Bee Trap

Carpenter bees are real pests around our yard, so this year we've made a couple of traps for them-- one for the patio and one for the shed.  We've caught quite a few bees already.

13/365 - Leaf-Footed Bugs

I loathe these things.  They don't bite, but they're everywhere right now-- and they'll fly right at you-- and they're terrifying-- and they're gross-- and they can make a horrible stench-- and I just plain don't like them even one little bit.  Yuck.

Thought of the Day

Leaf-footed bugs MUST DIE.

Every last sinkin'* one of them within a ten-mile radius, if I had my way. 

Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck YUCK.


*(Figuratively and literally stinkin', I might add.)

They're Ba-aack...

I just saw a pair of (conjoined) lovebugs on the kitchen window.

How do I always manage to forget about those things until they re-emerge for their (weeks-long) biannual bug-love fest? 

Yuck.  One more thing I could happily do without... But at least during this season, I don't really want to spend much time outside, anyway.

Random Tidbits

• Twice on Friday, Trixie barked at a butterfly that landed on the atrium door. Serious, extended barking. She's always been very conscious of insects and alerts us to invading spiders, moths, or crickets, but I think that's the first time she's barked at a butterfly.
  
• I am afraid of my pressure cooker. I still use it from time to time, but I don't really trust it not to explode. When I use it, I put Molly outside (her usual spot is in the kitchen) and I don't stay in the room more than I have to, myself. Irrational? Perhaps. But at least we're safe from exploding pressure cookers. ;o)
  
• World Celebrities Sing to Stop Global Warming. Oh, those celebrities. Always changing the world. This time, they "joined in recording a song to draw attention to the global warming crisis"-- because, you know, hardly anyone's heard about global warming. (But I thought the new accepted term was "climate change"...)
• I am:
  
• Encouraged by the huge numbers of people who showed up in Washington D.C. on Saturday (to protest the government's ever-increasing grasp for power).
  
• Annoyed (though not surprised) by the lack of coverage in much of the media-- or the sad attempts to belittle it by describing the crowds as merely "thousands" or "scores".
  
• Encouraged again that apparently a few more people are seeing this bias.
• After a rainy weekend, we're starting off the workweek with more rain. I would mind the rain less if it was at least a cool rain, but it's still fairly steamy out there. Still, this is September. If I remember correctly ;o) October comes next. Ah, October...
• Friday evening, I accidentally stepped on a caterpillar. I only knew I did so because (gulp) it made a sharp pop. (shudder) I am still haunted by the memory of that sound.
• Donald started training Trixie to "stay" in preparation for training her on weave poles. (Those are the the rows of vertical obstacles that dogs in agility competitions "weave" through.) She's definitely got the idea of what "stay" means, but she still needs some work on sticking with it. (Why does she have to stay? She doesn't want to!)
• We tried out our new board game, The Settlers of Catan, over the weekend. Technically it's not a two-person game, but lots of people have figured out ways to make it work. It was entertaining with two people, but I bet it'll be even better with three or more. We're going to have to invite my family over for a game, one of these weekends. (Family-- you've been warned. ;o))

Autumn Preview & Outdoor Oddities

Our weather over the weekend was beautiful-- cooler and drier than usual for August, with pleasant little breezes that made it feel cooler yet-- and for a couple of nights it was cool and dry enough for us to turn off the air conditioning and open a few windows.

Ahh... There's nothing like that first taste of autumn! Of course, it was only temporary. Heat and humidity have already begun to creep back up the scale, but we did our best to enjoy paradise while it lasted! ;o) (And there's supposed to another slight cool spell early next week!)

We took advantage of the nice weather and did some yard work. There's still much to do (I'm making a list of work to accomplish before spring/summer 2010), but it's a start.

After clearing a portion of a vastly overgrown flowerbed, I noticed a bunch of what looked like tiny white eggs.

I'm not sure yet what they contain(ed). A little later on, only a yard or two from the eggs, I saw a teensy baby green anole (a common lizard around here-- the type in my photos on Flickr). A quick look online suggests that maybe lizard eggs are larger than these were, but what else could they be? I wouldn't expect a garter snake to lay so many eggs, and I don't know if they'd be this tiny, either... Actually, I wouldn't expect a lizard to lay so many eggs. They don't strike me as insect eggs, but that would explain the number.

Speaking of insects, I found several of these strange-looking caterpillars in some rosebushes:

I think I've identified them as white-marked tussock moth caterpillars. If so, they apparently sting and are commonly found munching on trees.

Well, I had planned to write a slightly longer, coherent entry, but trying to write while I watch TV isn't working. (Weird, huh?)

There are some more photos from our nice-weather weekend on my Flickr photostream, including several pictures of Trixie chasing soap bubbles.

It's Tidbits or Nothing, I'm Afraid.

So tidbits it is!

(Glancing over my list of topics, I see that they tend toward the negative. Sorry about that. I'll save the non-negative for last, and you can just skip ahead, if you like.)

- - - - - - -

Boring details about jaw pain & sniffles to follow.
You may want to skip down one section...

You try not to complain too much about little things (Hey, who's that I hear stifling a snicker?!), because you know there are people who have real, serious problems, and sooner or later you'll likely experience some of them, too, but lately if it's not one (little) thing, it's another. Just as the pain in my right jaw/neck was finally fading away (but not quite all gone), I was hit by a sudden bout of very distracting sneezing and sniffling, Saturday night. That night was the worst of it, but I'm still a little more tickle-nosed/sneezy than normal. It doesn't seem to be a cold-- no sore throat, coughing, or fever. Every now and then, for the past couple of years, at least, I've had these "suddenly sneezy" experiences, which usually last only a day or two. I've sometimes wondered if I'm developing allergies. I never suffered from them as a child (as far as I can recall), but I think I've read that it's possible to develop them at any time. (Joy.)

P.S. I started this entry Monday, when the jaw pain was finally gone (after about a week). Tuesday morning, as I chewed my first spoonful of cereal, I heard that weird "crunch crunch crunch" sound in the right side of my jaw again-- the same thing I heard within a day or so of the onset of my last experience of jaw pain. (And it wasn't just the sound of the cereal crunching. (g)) I hope this isn't going to become a never-ending cycle of jaw weirdness, because it's really not much fun. And I'm not even one of those people who constantly chew gum! What am I supposed to do? Cut back on eating and talking? ;o) (I probably could cut back on some of the eating... But a healthier diet would likely involve even more chewing than I currently do. How many times is it that we're supposed to chew each mouthful? Twenty- or thirty-something times?)

...Well, that's enough health junk. You know how I hate medical/health junk. (Oh, you didn't? Well, now you do.)

- - - - - - -

We've been trying to get rid of something I grew up calling "sugar ants" (but which apparently are not sugar ants, since those don't live in the US). They've been in our kitchen for a long time, but until recently, they stayed in one spot away from the food. There weren't a lot of them, and they didn't appear to be hurting anything, so after "home remedy" solutions failed, I just threw up my hands and decided to learn to live with them. Recently, however, they showed up in our pantry, and that is not ok. Donald bought some bait poison, which we've been leaving out for several days. I can't tell whether or not it's working. Sometimes there are no ants in sight, but then (like last night, for instance) there are suddenly quite a few of them gathered around the "bait plates" again. I guess I'll keep replacing the bait and hope that it just takes a while to get them all.

Incidentally, it irritates me that (as I learned when researching ant deterrents online) so many people assume that if you have ants in the house, it's because you're living in a pig sty. I'll admit that I'm nowhere near the best housekeeper in the world, but it's impossible to live a meaningful life and keep the kitchen free of the minute amount of crumbs and food residue that it takes to keep a few ants alive. Even a dishwasher would be a big no-no unless you ran it immediately each time you dirtied a dish-- or thoroughly washed the dishes before leaving them on the rack (in which case why bother with the dishwasher at all?).

- - - - - - -

The terrible news of that jet that "disappeared" over the Atlantic has reminded me of all the horrific things I've ever imagined about flying-- what those last few minutes would be like. I'm glad we have no plans to fly this summer. Not that it's any less safe this summer than it ever is, but... well, I never really want to fly. It's like taking a nasty-tasting medicine-- it has to be done, sometimes, but if it didn't, I'd happily spend the rest of my life on solid ground, where I belong.

- - - - - - -

Last night, I woke at three-something a.m. from an awful dream. Someone I loved had died. (Apparently I'm too superstitious to give names...) I've dreamed before that people I care about have died, but I can't recall dreaming that about this particular person, until last night. The strange part was that until I woke up, it wasn't completely devastating. We were sad (though I have no idea why it was happening, we had warning, even to the point of discussing cremation/burial options), but it was something we both simply accepted with unnatural calmness. It wasn't until I was awake that I felt myself on the verge of tears-- when logically I should've been reassured that it was only a nightmare.

Last night, I turned over, tried to shake off unreasonable anxiety, and was soon back in the world of dreams (this time something about video games, a tornado-- an especially popular item in my jukebox o' dreams-- and the cast of That 70s Show), but it's not always that easy. Somehow, things always seem at their worst when I wake at 3 in the morning. L.M. Montgomery (one of my favorite authors) tended to write about the horrors of lying awake at 3 a.m.-- and I've seen references to that hour from time to time, elsewhere. I'm not sure why, but when I wake up around 3 a.m., I rarely feel good about myself or life in general. Worries that are manageable at other hours seem to crowd around me, smothering and insurmountable. Falling back asleep can sometimes be difficult-- but once I do, I'm generally back to my usual self in the morning. I suspect that there is something to this business about 3 a.m. being a cursed hour-- much worse than mere midnight. Of course, the "curse" is probably linked to our physiology-- biochemical reactions or something equally scientifically mysterious-- and the fact that we aren't thinking very clearly when we wake at that hour.

- - - - - - -

This weekend, Donald went up and replaced the shingles that were blown off our roof in March. We had been just keeping it patched with tar paper in anticipation of possibly having it professionally repaired, but after having it inspected and talking it over, Donald decided that he could replace the shingles himself.

It's good to have something a little more permanent than tar paper done, at least. Some of what the roofer we consulted with told us (suggesting that certain parts of the original job possibly hadn't been done properly) still makes me a little uneasy, but (rap wood again!) that roof saw us through Hurricane Ivan. Besides, even if we'd had a professional do it, we wouldn't have replaced the whole roof, and I know Donald put more care into the patch than the average roofer would have.

Here's to no more hurricanes or roof-damaging squalls for twenty years, at least! ;o)

- - - - - - -

We taught Trixie a couple new tricks, a few days ago. She already knew "sit" and "down". (Well, in theory. Sometimes she still seems to be confused about why it's necessary to get into the "sit" position when she's already "down". I guess I can't blame her. It doesn't make much sense...) Next, we added "roll over" and "speak". I wondered, while teaching her to speak, whether we'd regret it. So far, she's been pretty good. Of course, she sometimes barks during "trick sessions" just on the off chance that we'll reward her, but I think that will decrease as she becomes better at differentiating between commands. Still, maybe her next trick will be learning how to use an "inside voice".

Let's close with this very no-frills video of Trixie demonstrating her tricks:

Trixie's Tricks from Michael Johansson on Vimeo.

Mean Bee, Cass-uh-row, and "What's on Tivvy?"

With the return of the warmer weather, we've also noted the return of those horrible wood-boring bees. I really hate those things. They're destructive and menacing. They're also territorial, and they stand their ground-- er, hover their air(?).

Anyway, I'm a little frightened of them, to tell the truth. For some reason, they seem to love the area around our kitchen door. (It makes sense, now, because of all the new wood in the area, thanks to our patio project-- but they've always seemed to concentrate in that spot.) Today, as I made several trips carrying groceries inside from the car, I was under close and disapproving surveillance by one or two of the irritating things. I tried spraying one with wasp spray, but I don't think I got enough on it to do any real damage. Apparently the only way to kill them is the hit them with a board, then immediately find where they fell and finish them off before they have a chance to recover. (shudder) Donald, get your 2x4 ready for this weekend, ok?

- - - - -

I was making up my shopping list for the aforesaid groceries, when someone who shall remain nameless wondered why I hadn't made a particular "cass-uh-row" in such a long time.

(Pause for internal laughter) "Cass-uh-row? Did you just say 'cass-uh-row'?"

Yes, he had. "What. . .? Isn't that how you say it?" (Though by his expression it was clear that he now knew otherwise. (g))

Not quite-- but I guess it might sound a little like that. . .

Well, now we have the ingredients for that casserole that we haven't eaten in a year or two, even though the bee tried to prevent me from bringing them inside.

- - - - -

I'm watching my way through "The House of Eliott" again, as "lunchtime entertainment". It's pretty soap opera-y in spots, and as always seems to be the case in these programs, the characters sometimes-- no, frequently deserve a good spanking (Ugh, don't get me started on Evie!)-- but somehow it's still addictive and watchable.

(I'm fairly sure I mentioned this after an earlier viewing, but) I find it very funny when an episode ends on a tragic/dramatic note, complete with suitably emotional music, only to be immediately followed by the jaunty theme song. It's like this: Oh no! Someone's just been killed in a car accident! Horror! Drama! Sadness! Woe! --Well, ok. Enough of that, now. Back to the party! La-di-da da-da-da daaa daaa! La-di-da da-da daa-daaaa! La-la di da da dun-dun-dun, La-di-da di-da di-daa-aa-aa! (Yes, that's exactly how the theme song goes. :oP)

It's a little thing, but it makes me laugh.

P.S. If you've seen the program, you might be amused by this French & Saunders spoof: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Just a quick post.

• Trixie got her second round of shots today-- and her first visit to the vet's office. She weighed in at 5.8 pounds and knocked a few more numbers off the 100 people she's supposed to meet before she turns three months old. (It's a "socialization" thing. . .)
• There are some new puppy photos on my flickr photostream, if you're interested. One of these days, I'll probably post more than two or three photos at a time of something not related to Trixie, but that time hasn't come yet. ;o)
  
• Speaking of my photos at flickr, someone recently identified the weird white bug-things I photographed a few months ago. They're ladybug larvae!
  
• We're still keeping an eye on Hurricane Gustav (with Hanna also on the periphery of our attention), but so far, there's not much to say. We'll just have to wait and see. It's very unlikely that we'll have to face the worst of the storm, as it's predicted to come ashore in Louisiana, but we're still being advised to take precautions and stay alert to possible changes in the forecast.
  

Creepy Crawlies

Something I came across earlier this week, while trying to ID a bug:

The two-striped walking stick (aka musk mare, prairie alligator, devil's riding horse, or witch's horse) can "shoot a noxious substance from glands in the "neck" region with amazing accuracy"-- up to 15 inches away! They aim for the eyes of pets or people who disturb or threaten them; the resultant "irritation and blurry vision may last for hours". (They can also be pretty stinky, apparently. And someone who got the spray in his mouth reported that it has a disgusting taste, too. (g))

Sounds like something from the latest sci-fi film! These things live along the coastal plain from Florida to Texas, and as far north as South Carolina. If you see them, you'll probably want to avoid them-- or at least put on some safety goggles before you get close. (g)

Note: They don't always spray when handled. Many people report "friendly" encounters with these insects, only to learn later on that things could have ended badly. Still, it's best to be on the safe side. Some of those who have been sprayed were not even handling the insects. They simply got too close for the bug's comfort-- an easy thing to do, considering that they're camouflaged.