Last week on social media a mutual (mutual = someone who follows me and whom I follow back) posted a lovely photo of a monarch butterfly (Danaus Plexippus). They tagged me in the post and asked me a question about monarch butterfly wings.
Not the four-legged kind, though that would be fun too.
My current yard puppies are a passel of juvie Steller’s Jays who are filling my yard with their antics from dawn to dusk.
Regular readers of this space may remember the trials and tribulations I navigated in order to bring Da Beast back to life after a key part broke. Actually, I just had to remove the broken part from the handlebar and attach the new one the manufacturer had sent me at no charge.
This week’s All Things is all about the most Oregonian newt there is. The Mazama newt (Taricha granulosa mazamae).
Umpqua Frasera is a rare plant my niece and I found up on the Umpqua Divide back in 2016 while hunting huckleberries. These plants are only showy because of size of leaves and height flower stalks.
Ten years ago, on the densely wooded, nearly brushless shore of Kelly Lake, on the Indian Creek drainage below Poker Flat, I found an odd little saprophyte growing in the forest mold that somewhat resembled the snow plant, except that it was whitish instead of red.
This week’s crawly is the personification (arachnification?) of the Itsy-Bitsy Spider. No doubt they’d climb right back up the waterspout if washed out. Meet the Family Dictynidae (dic-tin-eh-day)AKA Mesh Web Weavers. We’ll call them Dic-teeny spiders for the duration because it’s easier to spell and accurate.
Tying in with this week’s All Things, I basically have a xeriscaped yard. Not out of design or desire, necessarily, but because my well puts out *maybe* 1 gal. per min. in summer and early fall. Irrigating three-quarters of an acre simply is not happening.
This week’s tale of woe began as I started my day last Saturday. I crawled out of bed and made my way to the kitchen for a bowl of Cheerios. When I began to pour the milk, it came out in chunks.