praying mantis in the garden.

I went out to our neglected garden on Saturday afternoon just to take a look around, see if there was any food to harvest, make future plans to clean up and make room for winter vegetables...ya know, garden stuff. I made my way over to the sunflowers and began snapping iPhotos when I saw movement...and it was this guy...a huge praying mantis. He was a bit camera shy, doing his best to avoid getting his photo taken. But I was able to sneak a few.

At one point he just stopped, cocked his head sideways, and looked straight at me like, "Really? Can't you see I do not want my photo taken?"

I just stared back, hoping he wasn't gonna jump on me, ya know, to drive his point home. (I like them, but I don't want them ON me.)

Each year I get so excited at the sight of the first praying mantis in our yard. We have them every year it seems. Little praying mantis babies, lots of them. One year I first started seeing them on the trunk of the pecan tree. This year they were in the grapes. As the summer goes on we see fewer and fewer of them, but every now and then get a glimpse of one or two that made it to adulthood. And a few weeks ago we got a glimpse of a shed exoskeleton.

One year when the boys were little Chris found a praying mantis egg on an old fence board. We put it in a jar with no lid, set it on the porch rail and checked it every day. One afternoon we came home from errands to find hundreds of the tiniest, cutest, little praying mantis forming a chain out of themselves to get out of the jar. For weeks many of them lived in the Japanese maple next to our porch. That was a cool experience.

(So just out of curiosity I decided to go see if he was still hanging out on the sunflowers...and he was! I didn't bother him this time, though, don't want to scare him off. I refer to it as a "he" but I don't know how to tell if it's male or female. If you know how, please do tell.)

Sunday morning..

...and I should be getting ready for church. But...instead...I'm catching up with my favorite bloggers and listening to the FOOD Network in the background. A perfect way to spend time, if you ask me. This big ol' bumblebee was on the rope swing last week..and she let me close enough to snap a photo. I was inching my way closer but then she flew off...close enough to my ear that I could hear her buzz by. For a minute I thought she'd landed on my head!

How do you say spider in French?

Can you see that little guy? I was trying to get photos of the aubergine flowers and that little spider caught me by surprise.

I'm not a spider person. At all. I'm not really a bug person. Good bugs are OK...lady bugs, praying mantis, bees, dragon fly's...but even still, I don't want them ON me. I'm kind of a wuss in that area. (Beekeeping friends...is this a bad sign?)

Years ago I went on a field trip with the boys to a bug museum at UC Davis. They had walking sticks and those giant Madagascar FLYING cock roaches. Oh my gosh...just thinking about those big ol' things makes my skin crawl. Flying? Really? I mean, it's not bad enough that they crawl?! Gross. Yuck. No thank you. And do you know that some of the kids were holding them? My SON being one of them?! Oh man...I wanted to tell him NO so badly. But...I didn't want to impose my fear and disgust on him. If he felt curious and brave enough to hold a big disgusting bug, go for it. Just keep it away from me!

But, as you can see, this little spider is far from big or flying. And it was really just minding it's own business and eating little bugs off my future aubergines. I am thinking that these are going to be white. Do you believe that I forgot what I planted? And then when I moved them a few weeks back I lost the tag. So...they will be a surprise! But I'm thinking white because the flowers are white. And by deduction, since the little lavender aubergine had lavender flowers, I'm thinking the white flower will be a white aubergine. So, we'll see. (And can I just say it's not as easy to type aubergine as it is to type eggplant? My mind doesn't think in French! I did take it in high school...but I pretty much just know how to ask where the bathroom is..."Excusez moi. Ou et le bain? Merci. Au revoir!" Madame McNamara would be proud.)

Anyway...it's Saturday. And we've got baseball games later. Seth plays tournament ball that goes well beyond the normal baseball season. We're crazy, I know. I could be so done with baseball season...but since I live with three males, extended season it is. Off to wash piles of baseball pants and make sure we have plenty of Gatorade!

Look who came to visit...

Yesterday I was out in the garden...watering, pinching off tomato plant sucker branches, checking new flower buds, moving tomato cages over eggplant bushes so the chickens will stop knocking off the blossoms...when I came across this: a big, beautiful dragon fly.

I was kneeling down, watering the tomato plants, when I look up and there he is, not only very beautiful but also very bold. I hollered for Ian to bring me my camera...and hurry up about it! Uh, please. (I do my best to set good examples around here you know.)

This amazing creature did not budge...no matter how close I got. At first I was taking pictures from a reasonable distance. But as I checked them in my camera I was thinking that, yes, while you could see him, it wasn't real easy and he was really jumbled in with the tomato branches. So, step by step I got closer and closer and closer. And he didn't move. So I just kept snapping away, picture after picture. And NO, he wasn't dead. Because there were a few times that the wind blew and he fluttered his wings to keep his balance. His grip on that tomato branch was strong.

I've always appreciated dragon flies...the way their lacy wings glisten, the way they hover....as far as insects go, they're alright in my book.

I remember once when I was a kid, my friend Jeff and I (remember Jeff? My armpit fart noise making friend? The one who punched me in the stomach? Yeah...him.) were riding our bikes in the cul-de-sac we lived on. We were just riding and riding and riding. I don't know, I may have been pretending that I was a Charlie's Angel, probably Farrah, driving my blue Cobra. I did that now and then. But anyway...suddenly, there were, and I think it's safe to say, hundreds of dragon flies hovering around our cul-de-sac. Maybe it just seemed like hundreds because I was a little girl, around 8 or so. But all I knew was that there were a LOT of dragon flies...and we rode our bikes through them over and over, every once in a while getting hit by one on the cheek or the arm. We made sure to keep our lips shut tight! It was kind of crazy...and really cool...when you're 8 anyway.