Scorpion #9

Sunday night—or rather, Monday morning—9.18.06, 3 a.m. Thirsty. Where is water? Make way to kitchen. In dim nightlight see movement in sink. What's that?, I think. Turn light up a little more. Scorpion!!

Poor little guy. He was trapped by the curved and shiny sides of the sink. I couldn't kill him; it would have been unfair advantage. Instead I scooped him (NO, not with my hands), carried him outside, and dumped him into the garden, never to be seen again (touch wood).

Scorpion #8

Friday September 15th, 8 or 9 p.m., on the wall between the lightswitches just inside the front door. After being smacked, it fell to the ground. Alive or dead, only the shadow knows.....

The Accidental Bee Trap

A friend is moving away and gave me her pretty glass hummingbird feeder, the kind with three separate little containers, each with a red glass flower in it which is the channel through which the hummingbirds drink the sugar water. Sadly, it became a bee & wasp trap. The throats of the flowers are large enough to allow the insects through, so they crawled down and then got stuck in the sugar water and died. This is a terrible, terrible thing. I will have to find another use for the little feeder, or give it to someone else who has fewer bees and wasps.

The Hummingbird Moth

In the garden Sunday evening, arranging all the beautiful plants that Carolyn B has given me as she packs up and disposes of possessions in anticipation of her move, I was near the red sage that the hummingbirds love (the one Hamilton used to park under to snag them, before we curtailed his early-morning outdoor activities) and suddenly a little hummingbird moth was right in front of my face, flapping its little moth wings like mad as it had a go at the sage. It didn't outright hum, as the larger one that we saw last year did. But it was spectacular nonetheless.
The next day Hugh saw it outside the kitchen window and swears that a hummingbird bird came along and tried to flirt with it before realizing it was the wrong species.
Sadly, we have yet to capture one of these on film....

The Night of the Spiders

I was in the kitchen on Tuesday night, post-dinner, putting some dishes in the dishwasher. Suddenly on one return to sink from washer, there was a giant spider there in the sink! It seemed to be wet, and I think perhaps it came out of the drain that leads to the disposal. It sat there in its wetness of in sort of a stupor; who could blame it? I scooped it up in a plastic tub and put it outside on the front porch.
Less than 30 minutes later I was in the big chair in the front room, watching a spot of telly before going to bed, and (suddenly again) there appeared on the wall behind the television another giant spider! I ran for the camera yet again. (I do that a lot at the cabin.) After the photo shoot, this second spider made its way up the wall and then disappeared into a little space where the wall meets the cedarwood window trim. That corner is a favorite of spiders and scorpions. I thought they were both were wolf spiders, but looking at the pictures now they seem to be different varieties. As I said, that first guy was wet, so it's hard to tell.

The Thrashing Caterpillar

On my way to the outdoor shower on Saturday morning, I stopped to visit with Fritz on the back porch. There he was, all innocent and cute, and there were rustly, thrashy noises coming from the garden. "Oh no!" I thought, "he caught a bird and it is lying over there in death throes! Or in wounded throes!" and I ran over to look. Nothing readily apparent, but still could I hear leaves moving about. I waited and waited and finally my eyes honed in on a little caterpillar! Or rather, a rather large caterpillar. And it was thrashing like mad! It thrashed itself right out of the dry leaves under some plants and onto the rockwork of the back terraced area. It started crawling toward Rosa Winchester Cathedral, with periodic fits of thrashing. On the rock, after thrashing, it would find itself pointed a different way each time and so would start crawling off in that new direction. I was a little worried about him being on the very hot rock so I got a leaf and tried to help him onto it, which caused another fit of thrashing; so I got a larger leaf, tricked him onto it with no thrashing, and deposited him in the tall green grass of the kitchen garden. I could hear periodic thrashing throughout my shower, and could even hear him about an hour later when I went out to see how he was doing. I have never seen such a thing before. Film to be posted as soon as I edit out the parts where I got distracted and the camera without me filmed things like my feet and the towel I was wearing.

The Dog Days of Summer

I had a whole month of no entries in between Scorpions 6 & 7. The dog days of summer are here. It is hot, dry, tiring, indeed nigh exhausting. There is not a lot going on with birds or bugs or cats or me or anything; we are all too tired. The hummingbirds are the only thing that show no signs of weariness.

Scorpion #7

Saturday 7.29.06, afternoon or evening--6ish?
Can't believe there have been only 7 scorpions this year so far. And this last one barely counts. I found it on the porch under one of the recycle bins, half-smashed, apparently from me moving the bin over while he was under it, poor thing. I might have let him live, seeing as he wasn't even in the house.

Scorpion #6

Scorpion #6 fell onto our bed last night from above, approximately 11:30, post-potluck and guests. I was in bed; Hugh was on bed. It fell right on his (naked) foot, which he then shook violently, sending the scorpion flying, not that we knew for sure that it was a scorpion yet, only that it was a something that was suddenly on his foot. We leapt up to find where it had gone; Loretta the cat quickly tracked it to where it had slipped between bed and footboard. We carefully loosed the end of the bedspread and then Hugh, sport clog in hand, got remorse and began calling for A cup! A cup! I ran to the kitchen but by the time I'd wrestled an appropriate container out of a drawer and made it back to the bedroom, he'd impatiently knocked the scorpion off the spread and onto the floor, momentarily lost it and had to find it again, and was just smashing it as I came back with the Humane Catch & Release Tupperware Tub. Oh well. We left the container in the bedroom at hand for easy access for next time.

The next surprise was this morning under the sink....Antvasion, Part 87! We'd carefully cleaned up thoroughly last night to avoid a scene this morning; so the ants kindly left the counter and sink areas alone and had a big party down under instead. I am too unnerved to comment more fully at this time, but I did have the strength and courage to get the teeming garbage out the door and onto the front porch, where it now sits in double-bagged glory. How telling that the ants completely ignore the compost bucket.

A Hamilton Update

I forgot put in Hamilton's entry his sweet and delicate bird-cry of a meow and what a surprise it is coming from such a monstrous cat. He is taking his daily morning imprisonment very well overall.

A Cardinal Update

There are two cardinal babies. Both sport the charming, young-cardinal mohawk; one's beak has become orange, but the other's is still dark. They have the patchy coloring and sticky-outy feathers of the young and they come to the feeders daily. Afternoon seems to be time for the junior set at the feeders; I just saw both cardinals, the titmice pair, and our young little scrub jay all snacking and hanging about convivially.

7.5.2006: No, there are three cardinal babies! There are two with bills not yet turned; one has a striking orange mohawk, and the other's is brown. Saw them all yesterday at the feeder. Yeah, baby!

Scorpion #5, 2006; and The Crazy Mantis

Scorpion #5, June 29, 8pm or so:
Inside the front door, sort of tucked between the door trim and the wall. Another one that sort of made me sad; he was just sitting there. He was trying to hide. Hugh tries hard to convince me that its mere presence in our house is not acceptable...but that argument doesn't entirely negate my feelings of remorse.

The Crazy Mantis:
Wednesday night, out back watering, I spotted a little green mantis on the rock near Rosa Winchester Cathedral (a potted rose). It was just going around and around in circles! We decided it must be newly b0rn. It was very green, very short, and very plump. When Hamilton moved into the area to drink some of the water overflowing from the rose pot, I moved the little mantis into a protected area. I took photos but they didn't come out very well, as it was dusk.

My Very Special Spotted Bug is Famous Now!

I can hardly believe it but my very special spotted bug, which I now know is an Ironclad Beetle (see The Gorey Beetle), has made it onto the What's That Bug website! I feel so honored. Special thanks to Jen who introduced me to the site and to Carolyn B who said on Friday, "Your bug is better than (or maybe she said "as good as") those--you email him!"

p.s. I am practically famous now. Or at least my bug is.

Mr Fritz's Summer Outfit

I tamed Fritz from the wild, you know (I am fond of saying this). And just look at him now, lying in the lap of luxury.

Fritz, also known as Frito Pie and Mr Loud, is the other cat that came with the house. For the first several months, we'd see him every three weeks or so, when he'd come to eat voraciously from the bowl of food we'd leave for him on the front porch, and he'd run away when he saw us. I worried what he'd do when winter came (though as this is Texas, winter is not usually very life-threatening, as it is in, say, Norway). Gradually, as we spent time outside, he'd venture nearer, eventually climbing into a lap now and then. As the months passed, he started coming inside on a regular basis and next thing we knew, he was one of Our Cats.
He has the thickest, most luxurious short fur I've ever felt on a cat, which gives him a curiously stout and padded look, though he's actually quite small. I found myself saying things like This sweater makes me look like Fritz, and I began to notice a certain type of short-necked, square-jawed person who also brought him to mind. But this spring he suddenly shed his thick coat and began sporting what I call his summer outfit, in which one can see his true diminutive size. It's funny; I don't remember him doing this last year, which was a deeply, miserably hot summer.

The "Mr Loud" nickname is quite self-explanatory, but I do also happen to have a drawing I made of this side of his personality. I'll round that up and post it....

Antvasion! and the Walking Stick in My WIne, and What is Biting Me?! (The Story of the Jeep)

It is prime insect season at the cabin. Even as I write this, there is a crazed spider running up and down the wall in front of me. It is very confused about exactly where it wants to go.

In addition to the masses of ants in the sink, whom this year do not seem repelled by the fresh mint and so are giving us all kinds of Kodak moments for filming for our epic picture Antvasion!, the other night a walking stick fell into my wine where it innocently resided on my bedside table. We do not know why I, undisgusted by anything other than rats and giant cockroaches, are so unsettled by walking sticks, but I am. I think it's because you cannot see their heads. That is, they appear not to have them, because that would make them look like not a stick and that would ruin the point, now, wouldn't it. I bravely plucked him out of my wine, though, and with barely a shudder got him out the back door and onto the porch.

The other primary insect action right now is whatever is biting me at night. I wake up every day with a new bite in a new place. Of course the first thought is always that it's a brown recluse, and one waits anxiously for a couple of hours for the necrosis to begin; thankfully, it never does. But because of this, 2 weeks ago on Saturday when I woke up with bite just under a pink and swollen left eye, I immediately wanted a Benadryl, though they completely send me into a stupor. I could not go get one myself, as I was pinned to the bed by cats, so I asked my darling husband if he could be so kind as to get one for me. He did. It was the wrong kind, the blue sinus type. I asked for another, hoping for a pink, non-capsule type that is easy to break in half. He came back with a pink capsule one , at which point I said to hell with it, I will take the whole dang thing. So I did.

Which is, I believe, the reason that when we left the recycling center that afternoon on the way to brunch, I backed our jeep into a telephone pole. Or, as my friend K would say, a telephone pole leaped out and attacked me. I managed to hit it at the juncture of four—not one, not two, but four—different car parts: taillight, right rear panel, liftback, and bumper. Oh, and possibly more damage under the bumper, according to the guy at the body shop. We proceeded on to brunch and then took me home where sadly and
druggedly I fell into a deep 3-hour sleep. Two weeks later, you can still see the bite mark under my eye.

Hamilton the Best-smelling Cat and His Asthma

Hamilton and Fritz came to us with our house. Laurie, the wife of the selling couple, had said to me when we were viewing it for the second time,"So, we think we're going to leave the cats with the house." I responded along the lines of That's okay, I love cats!, never dreaming that she meant it (how could anyone leave their cats?!). But we moved in with 2 cats and 3 dogs and found 2 other cats already in residence.

Hamilton the Giant weighs fifteen pounds and it's all muscle. He is the biggest cat I have ever known, and the best-smelling one; he smells like cedar and outside and fresh air with just the tiniest hint of smokiness. He seems to have allergies and gets very asthmatically wheezy at times. He is also Death On Paws to birds, and we have a special morning regime because of him. I get up at 5:30 or so, before dawn, and read for a bit, till Ham and Fritz appear at the door to come inside for breakfast. Then Fritz (Mr Loud) is allowed to go back out, because though he chases after the occasional bird, he never seems to actually catch one (and also because he will sit at the door and endlessly, loudly meow if not let out; hence his nickname). Hamilton is kept inside, but put out of the bedroom, because otherwise he starts to eye Loretta's food and she gets very noisily growly at him. Usually this is about the time that dogs start deciding that they, too, must go out as well, and they don't usually coordinate with the cats, so there's a little bit more traffic through the bedroom till finally I manage to snooze for another hour or so before getting up to go to work. Ham is kept in until after noon, when the birds are done with their heavy morning activity and seem more alert to cats. So far this strategy has been successful.

All the Other Pretty Birds

Bird babies at the cabin this year other than the cardinal and woodpeckers:

• Two titmice
• Finches—hard to tell, because they're all so small, but I think there are many, as the ranks seem to have doubled lately
• Hummingbirds—ditto the above
  
• At least two scrub jays
• Possibly a Scott's oriole, but may be wishful thinking
  
• Two Zenaida doves
• A bluejay
  

Bunnies in the Meat Case

I felt weird and sad tonight, and thought of Bobby the Bunny, when I saw plastic bags in the meat case at Central Market that were labeled "Whole Rabbits." I had to look away.

The Cat Who Thought He Was a Tiger

Hamilton Pool Road is not a highway!

My bumper stickers came today! I am terribly excited even though H has revealed to me that he is not, because he thinks that Hamilton Pool Road IS a highway. My feeling is that it doesn't matter whether it really is or not....the sentiment is more about what we want it to be.

Baby Cardie is Alive!

I suppose it could be any baby cardinal, but we like to think it's ours, the one from the back porch who so mysteriously was not ever seen at the nest. But now he or she and Mr Cardie are flying around, sitting at the feeder together, Dad tenderly feeding him/her sunflower seeds, looking out for him/her, protecting him/her from the scrub jays and Zenaida doves and house finches. We're rather pleased that our weeks of aural agony when Mr Loud was imprisoned in the house were not for naught after all.

An Alternate Alternate Woodie and Where One of Them Sleeps

There are TWO Alternate Woodies! Saturday night as I gloamed alone on the patio, while H slaved away at his computer inside, as I watched Alternate Woodie who was shyly perched in his Woodie alternate tree, suddenly another Alternate Woodie—same darkish, unformed coloring—appeared beside me in the main Woodie tree. AW1 flew right over to the main tree too; AW2 flew away toward the back of the house; and AW1 then flew to tree #3 off to the right, which is pretty close and from which he could presumably still keep an eye on the main tree.
But presumably they are from the same nest—so who gets the tree? Do they share sometimes? And where have mum and dad gone? They seem to have disappeared, which is what happened last year when the first Young Woodie was born; for a while we'd see the little family group sitting together, then suddenly it was Young Woodie alone.
The tree, by the way, an arthritic old oak at the edge of our patio, is rife with holes. At dusk Alternate Woodie flies over, hops and peers around for a while to make sure it's safe, and then ducks down into this year's hole, where we think he beds down for the night, even though my Aunt Dorothy commented that birds don't live in nests when they're not having babies. Perhaps that doesn't apply to golden-fronted woodpeckers. It's quite sweet.

The Gorey Beetle

First seen and documented last year on the steps; last night we found him on the patio.

Later that evening: I just had the brilliant idea of digging up last year's photo to match up the dots. If they match exactly, is it the very same beetle, or do all of them have exactly the same pattern?

6.24.06: Finally, I've found the file of last year's bug, and he's not exactly the same. Also, just after composing an email query about him to What's That Bug? in which I stated that I've only ever seen these two, that very evening upon arriving home the first thing I saw was yet another (below), with a rather different zipper-style down his back. Very interesting!

He is a He!

The alternate woodie came to the oriole feeder tonight. He's definitely a baby and he's definitely a male; I saw the red dot on the top of his head. He's adorable. I love him.

Scorpion #4, 2006

Ewwwww. I just learned that if you smash a scorpion and then sort of regret it because he was outside on your patio and not even in your house, even though the patio sort of counts as another room, and then in a sad attempt at saving grace you get a plastic tub to save the body because you remember that your friend Megan once asked you to save her a dead scorpion, and then you put the tub on the dining table and forget about it for many days until you want to photograph it for your blog and so you open up the tub again, that it smells just as bad as any dead mammal (only smaller). Who knew?!

The Alternate Woodie

We think our baby woodpecker has been born and is now out and about! I keep seeing a strangely darkish Woodie, who hangs out at the Woodie tree and stays pretty close to home, hanging out in the nearby other tree when we are on the patio too close to the Woodie tree. I am on a mission to capture him on film yet don't wish to scare him, being convinced that he is indeed the Woodie baby and is therefore new to this world and shy. Last night Hamilton the Giant was sitting under the Woodie tree, looking up way too interestedly at the holes therein; I squirted him with the hose and hope I've taught him a permanent lesson, though of course I haven't, as his brain is the size of a walnut and he will have forgotten his soaking about 5 minutes after receiving it. Bah.

Scorpion Count 2006

The Scorpion Count has begun for 2006. I have kept track of every scorpion sighting (date + where seen) since we moved in; in the back of my mind has always been the thought that if we ever reach the point where the average is more than one a week, that we might consider doing something about them (poison?!). But we have never reached that point, so we (that's sort of a royal "we" there; there is one among us who forgets and will be sorry one day) shake out our shoes and garments before putting them on and keep our fingers crossed and our eyes open.

1. 5/16/2006, 11:10 p.m.: In Loretta's area, behind the VCR on top of Hugh's dresser. She was intrigued.
2. 5/18, 9:30 p.m.: In the big room on the wall behind the TV. Vanished into crevice before I could smash it.
3. 5/24, 9:30ish again: On the floor in the hall by the living room entryway. I flattened it like a pancake.*

In 2004, we had 17 from May through October.
In 2005, only 7, same months. It was a much drier year than 2004.

*We thought once of catch-and-release, instead of smashing; but so far have yet to put this into practice.

The Mysterious Cardinals

Two of our cardinals began building a nest in a corner of the back porch the first weekend in May. Mrs Cardie started sitting on the nest shortly thereafter; by Wednesday she was firmly ensconced. We began keeping a close eye on the cats and trying to keep them in as much as possible. The nest is just outside the French doors that lead from our bedroom to the back yard.
The following Sunday night, I couldn't sleep, and so turned on the light and read for a while. Hamilton was very fussy and I thought, what harm can he do in the middle of the night? The birds are all asleep... So I let him out. Within 3 minutes I heard a sound and leaped up and ran outside just in time to pluck him from 3/4 of the way up the cedar post at the top of which sits the nest. (And he is so giant that when he is stretched out, as when climbing, he's a good 3 feet long, or so it seems, like a small jungle cat.)
Apparently I was very middle-of-the-night loopy, because before too long, Fritz (aka Mr Loud) was being, yes, LOUD, and I thought, what harm can he do in the middle of the night? The birds are all asleep... and not 3 minutes later I heard a sound and leaped up and ran outside just in time to pluck him out of the roof of the porch, off the very beam which sits atop the cedar post at the top of which sits the nest. I always think of Fritz as the lesser killer of the two boy cats, but he knew what he was going for that night. So this is what led to the no-cats-out-till-the-babies-are-hatched-and-fledged rule.
We kept them in for over 2 weeks. It was hell. Mr Loud is called that for a reason. We went out of town for three days; our friend who animal-sat slept in the living room after the first night. We came back on Tuesday, 2 weeks after the initial nest-sitting began, and the next day or so, I was thrilled to see Mr & Mrs Cardie coming to the nest with food! They were feeding the babies! We watched their uneventful comings and goings till Friday. That morning, I saw a scrub jay very close to the nest, while Mrs C looked on alarmedly from afar; I opened the door and hissed it away, It left, only to be replaced by a titmouse, also looking very interested, and I hissed it away, too. But after that, we didn't see either parent at the nest again. It was too early, we thought, for the babies to have fledged, but on the other hand, maybe the eggs were laid sooner than we thought, or maybe they abandoned the babies, or maybe there never were any babies, or maybe the eggs got eaten by snakes, but I had seen the parents with food, so what happened?
Finally, this Saturday, after a full day of no more Mrs, Hugh took pictures of the inside of the nest. Thankfully there were no dead babies in it. There were no eggshell shards either. What happened? Were the babies ever there at all? Could they have left without us seeing them? Last year there were bird babies everywhere; this year, not so many.
I did see Mr C at the birdfeeder the other day. He took a sunflower seed away to someone in the tree, but I couldn't see if it was a baby or if it was Mrs C being shy. I am waiting, I am waiting, for our cardinal baby...

Butterflies

Our garden has been full of butterflies in the last few days.

Ants in the Oak Tree

I did not know that ants can, and do, live in trees. I decided to move the compost heap today so we can put a picnic table (instead of compost) under the nice oak tree in the meadow. I also wanted to get all the parasitic mistletoe out of the nice oak. While up on the stepladder, I put my hand on a little stubby dead bit for balance and approximately 10,000 red-and-black ants came streaming out of it! I had already noticed some strange growths or attachments on some of the branches, about the size and shape of plums and seemingly made of wood; when I cut one open, it, too, was full of ants. Very weird. Lastly, at the base of the tree, there is a stump of what was once a third main trunk, with a hole in it. I was curious. I got a stick. I put the stick in the hole. Out came another 10,000 ants!
I am alarmed and intrigued. Are the ants there because the tree has those dead bits, or are the dead bits dead because the ants are there? Inquiring minds want to know....

The Tarantula

I walked into the bathroom the morning of Sunday May 14th and lo, there upon the window was a very large tarantula. It was as big as my hand! It was crawling! It wanted out! So I ran for the tupperware while Hugh ran for the video camera. The saving of the tarantula has been captured on film, as has been my petting of said tarantula (though the nakedness has been edited out). Wowsers! It was like petting a mouse--firm and furry, no mushiness at all. Go here

http://www.hughw.net/~hughw/movies/Tarantula.wmv

to see the movie!

Bobby

Bobby the Bunny died today. We've been keeping the cats IN, IN, IN because of their midnight marauding scarily near the cardinals' nest on the back porch; but last night Hugh took them for a supervised romp down the hill. I came home, H came to greet me, and Hamilton and Fritz were left to their own devices for a moment. Seeing as they were out front (away from the nest), H was unconcerned, but I was nervous. Fritz came running at first call, but not Ham. I wandered in the near-dark, calling and calling, and finally spied him a few yards down the hill, but he would not come to me as usual. Slowly I realized that he had something. I ran down the hill in my sandals (missing a new giant ant bed on the way, happily). There at Hamilton's feet, now discarded by him, was a bunny, the tiniest, sweetest bunny you've ever seen. It was so still that I had to lean in before I could make out that it was a bunny and not a rock. I grabbed Ham, took him inside and shut him in the bedroom, grabbed a towel and a flashlight, and ran back down the hill.
We brought the little bunny inside. He was immobile from shock and who-knows-what other damage, and there was a little blood, but the bites didn't seem too bad. We cleaned him up and decided that we would take him back down the hill and leave him for a time, thinking that he might recover once out of sight of the giant humans, or that his mummy might come for him. But 15 minutes later he was right where we'd left him. We brought him in again and made him a little box. Using an eyedropper, we gave him some water, and Hugh made him some tiny carrot slices, one of which he licked. We named him Bobby.
Bobby didn't look very good in the morning (even though he had eaten one of the carrot bits) so I took in to town to our vet. They kept him there and tended to him but to no avail.

We decided that he ought to be returned to the hill from whence he came so the next morning I picked up his little body from the vet and brought him home, albeit somewhat indirectly. I had a massage scheduled that afternoon, and the vet is north, and massage and home both south, so I had to retrieve my little bunny-filled box from the vet and then take it in with me to the massage, as May in Austin is no time for leaving bunnies, dead or alive, in parked cars. April kindly did not mind the additional company.
When I finally arrived home, Hugh and I walked down the hill, trying to figure out where to put him where he wouldn't be easily dug up by cats or dogs or coyotes or foxes. We finally found a spot under a little oak tree, dug the hole, unwrapped his little body, and laid him to rest. We marked the spot with stones and a "B" fashioned from twigs.