Beetle Invasion!

We've been invaded! Our whole property is swarming with Japanese Beetles. Seriously! Yesterday we were standing in the yard and someone noticed that there were a lot of "bees" hovering over the grass and around the plants. I knew they weren't bees, but at first look thought they were some sort of flies. Didn't pay much attention until I went out this morning and discovered that all the flowers, plants and trees were covered with Japanese Beetles, horny little buggers mating in clusters of insect frenzy.

I absolutely loathe those nasties. They play havoc with vegetation and can ruin trees and ornamentals. My favorite flower is the rose, but I have purposely avoided planting any in my east coast yard, knowing that Japanese Beetles are prevalent in this area, and roses are a favorite food of the beetles.

We put out a beetle trap, and they are so dumb it actually works, but I know that's not going to make much of an impact. I also captured some in a coffee can with water in the bottom, and probably succeeded in eliminating a total of a few hundred in just a few minutes, but soon gave up the effort. There are easily a million flying around and I was just frustrating myself trying to get rid of them. It's like sticking your finger in a dike to hold back the sea.

It's always something. Last year was the 17-year cicada emergence. I know it's all part of the natural cycle of life, I just wish they'd leave us alone. I really don't want to resort to any chemical pesticides, so we're probably stuck with them.

Bummer!

Fairy Lights

It was lovely outside tonight, just before dusk. The clouds were pink cotton candy in the dwindling light before sunset, and the fireflies were blinking all over the lawn. I watched for a few minutes, trying to decode their signals. It seemed that they would all blink at once, then for a few seconds, the blinking stopped. The males flash to attract a female, and if she's interested, the female will blink back to let him know where she's hiding. This little game will go on until they finally meet and have a go at it.

Here's an interesting little tidbit. Some females from different species have evolved the ability to mimic other firefly females, thus luring the horny males for dinner - but unknown to them, they're the main course! Here's the official skinny:

"The male firefly of the species Photinus pyralis, beams a single half-flash during a forward rising flight movement. It looks like the letter "J." The female responds with a single flash. Another species, Photinus consumilis, signals his mate with a rapid succession of flashes. She responds with two beams. In general, males will not fly down to a female that sends the wrong species signal. But, some females of differing species have evolved the ability to mimic the response flashes of species other than their own. As the male flies down to a mimicking female, he is captured and eaten, gulp!"

How 'Bout a Little Rain Over Here?

We have a well on our property, and Jim is convinced I'm draining it dry. I've been babying the various flowers and plants in our gardens to keep them going during the current dry spell we're having. Every day I go out and hand water all the patio pots and hanging baskets. A few days ago I dragged a hose to one of the larger gardens and set up an oscillating sprinkler to drench the shrubs and flowers. For whatever reason, we have very low water pressure from the hose bibs, and instead of the ten-to-fifteen foot arc of spray I anticipated, all I got was a little dribble about 15 inches high. I can deal with that - just water longer and keep moving the sprinkler head. When I went out after a half hour or so, I found that the sprinkler had blown it's cork, so to speak, and water was just running out in a stream. Sigh.

We have another sprinkler head. This one is a ring about 8 inches in diameter with holes poked all over it. I figured this one might spray up a few feet into the air, so if I placed it in the middle of the tomato plant and veggie garden, it would water the whole plot at once. I put the ring squarely in the middle, turned on the water full blast, and held my breath. It squirted out this mini-water fountain about 6 inches high. All in all, this little garden patch is no more than 8'x10', and I had to move the sprinkler six times before it soaked all the plants.

Low water pressure is just a small downside of country life. Maybe the only one I'll have to learn to live with, and if so, it's no real biggie. On the plus side, no water bill!

Mr. Vagabond

Pong, one of our three Tonkinese, has become more and more of an outdoor cat. Although none of the three are allowed outside after dark, Pong is outside all day long, returning only briefly a few times during the day to grab a snack, then he's off again. The other two Tonks are much more home bodies. Pong has this really loud, annoying meow and is unrelenting when he wants to go out. Our job is to open the door. We have no idea where he spends all his time - at the neighbors, in the woods, patrolling the property. Who knows. He does take his moling duties very seriously.

First thing he does when he goes outside is to roll around on the patio. When he finally does come inside, he's all dusty and dirty, with flecks of grit and grime and debris on his fur. I'm not happy about that.

Until the past year or so of being outside as he pleases, Pong was an indoor cat. A real slug, eating and sleeping most of the day away, and that's about it. Normal kitty behavior. At 14 pounds, according to the vet, he was on the verge of obesity. Now he's slimmed down, no more paunch, and looks fit and trim.

I wonder if he naps outside, and if so, where does he sleep? Occasionally we see him stretched out on a lounge chair on the porch of Le Shed, but not too often. I somehow can't imagine him curling up for a snooze on a bed of leaves.

Jim thinks maybe he has a girlfriend. He's been "fixed" since he was a few months old, so we don't worry that he's increasing the feline population of the county. So if he is fooling around, he's just shooting blanks.

I don't have the heart to tell him.

Sponges - The Latest in Schnoz Protection

Here's an interesting little tidbit from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. It seems that dolphins around Shark Bay, Western Australia have been observed tearing sponges from the sea floor to use as snout armor when foraging for food. Apparently poking their bazoos into crevices and along the sandy bottom results in scrapes and scuffs and stings from various nasties. Some of the dolphins, mostly the females, have found that wearing a sponge is a good thing, like gardeners wearing gloves. The young ones, who spend up to four years with their moms before weaning, learn to sponge by watching mom, and it gets passed down the family line. This is huge, since animals using tools is a relatively rare thing, behavior that is usually limited to humans and other primates.

What I found especially amusing is that it's just the females who have figured out this sponge idea. The males must think it's sissy behavior, so they continue getting bruised and stung. Apparently they'd rather be macho and spend their time checking out the gals.

A quote from the article says: "Only one male was observed using a sponge. (Michael) Kruetzen noted that, as adults, male and female dolphins have very different lifestyles.

Adult males form small groups of two or three individuals that chase females in reproductive condition, he explained. `I would think that they do not have time to engage in such a time-consuming foraging activity as adults, as they are busy herding females.'"

Hmm. Now why does this sound so familiar?

Have You Hugged Your Rhody Today?

I read something today that I found very interesting. Great article. According to a study at Rutgers University, we humans have an emotional attachment to flowers. "Our hypothesis is that flowers are exploiting an emotional niche. They make us happy," McGuire says. "Because they are a source of pleasure, a positive emotion inducer, we take care of them. In that sense they're like dogs. They are the pets of the plant world."

I really like that analogy - pets of the plant world. I get it. Tending to the garden is like taking care of pets - we feed them, water them, protect them, and give them lots of love and TLC, and they reward us by looking adorable.

And then eventually, of course, they up and die on us.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

My heart rate got an unexpected jumpstart this morning. I was on the phone, looking out onto the patio, when suddenly I spied a small, black head peeking over the stone wall. This was followed by a long, slithery black body that kept coming, and coming, and coming, until it reached the patio and rose up the side of a large planter, its little tongue zipping in and out of its mouth. SNAKE!!

Oh. My. God! Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I hung up the phone to go outside to tell Jim what was going on. He was saddling up the mower by Le Shed. Before I could get to the door, the phone rang again.

It was a call for Jim, so out I went with the phone and the news of the patio intruder. He took the phone and calmly began his call while watching the unfolding of this unending snake. It was a good 6 to 8 feet long. Unbelievable! After a minute or so, he slithered himself back up and over the patio wall into a bed of day lilies. Well, that's just great. This freaked me out even more, him being out of sight, because I know He’s Out There. I’ll never be able to walk barefoot through the yard again with the same feeling of abandon. If only it hadn’t been so BIG and so BLACK and so GHASTLY. Now, I’m a reasonable person. Garter snakes are reasonable snakes, but this one? Nightmare material.

Jim says he hates snakes, but for some reason he likes this one, which is apparently a Black Rat Snake. I somehow thought Jim would be my protector and take it on. But no, he considers it “beneficial” because it feeds on mice and moles and other small rodents. Hmpf. I’m rather partial to our little chipmunks and squirrels and mousies, and hate to think of them ending up anybody’s dinner, especially a nasty-ass snake's. After all, the little hoo haa's are only here because we feed the birds, and in return they entertain us with their acrobatic antics. So now they’ll think we’re just fattening them up for the chow line.

Well, you've heard it before - Nature is a cruel Mother.

Tonkinese Food Critics

Well, it’s happened again. My cooking has been critiqued by one of the cats, and found to be inedible.

It’s like this. Every evening, as Jim and I sit down to dinner, one or more of the Tonks will sit patiently on the floor between us, looking for a taste of what’s for dinner. Sometimes they are patient, as I said, but occasionally they start clammering non-stop in high-pitched Tonkinese if we ignore them and simply try to eat our dinners.

Tonight Paddle was the only beggar, the other two still outside on mole patrole. I had prepared, from scratch I’ll have you know, a nice dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, mixed green salad and rolls. I thought it was lovely, could rival any nice Italian restaurant’s fare. Jim and I started eating, and Paddle began non-stop meowing, determined to know what we were eating. Now, just so you don’t think they beg because we deny our cats enough to eat, rest assured, they always have plenty of food in their bowl. It’s premium quality dry cat food, and whenever the bowl is near empty, we refill it. So they’re never starving, no matter that they might tell you otherwise.

I confess that even though they have their own food, we do give them bites from our plates to let them feel included in the evening meal - meat, chicken, fish, whatever. They have us well trained. We feel guilty when it’s vegetarian or pizza, since they don't like those things. Anyway, Jim obediently cut a piece of meatball for Paddle, sucked off the offending sauce, which he knows she won’t eat, and presented her with a nice, bitesized tidbit.

Here’s where it gets ugly. She gave the meatball a cursory sniff, turned tail and walked away. And Paddle is a little pig, who will eat lots of stuff that makes the others turn up their noses. Do you know what it feels like to have your cooking rejected by a cat? I suppose I should be grateful that I didn’t get their topmost rejection - which I have on many occasions - the leg shake as she walked away. If it’s something they think is gross, I get the 2-legged shimmy, or if it's really gross, an all 4-legged waggle. I kid you not! They turn tail, walk/run away, shaking their feet as if to rid themselves off even the smell of whatever revolting food I have served for dinner, prancing away in a kind of kitty jig.

There's more - the ultimate insult they offer. If they don’t like the smell of what we’re eating, they will try to “bury” it, right in front of me, pawing at the floor and covering the offending food with imaginery dirt.

Now, I have to assume, since they really are very smart cats, that this burying tactic is mime play-acting. They don’t really think there is any dirt there, they’re just saying, “Phew - this stuff belongs in the litter box. Better cover it up before it stinks up the whole house.”

So all I can say is, at least Jim will eat it.