our sweet Claudia

It's been a tearful week here on the homestead.  Claudia, our beloved barn cat, is not doing well.  It's hard to qualify the exact issue, other than she seems to have aged rapidly.  She's not eating much.  Her fur is extremely dry and matted and she does not like to be brushed like she used to.  She has a stiff, arthritic walk and spends most of her time asleep, but not in her usual spots on the porch chairs.  I suspect that she's unable to jump up like she used to, so we've made a soft place for her on the ground.  She stays there, but spends more time in secret cubbies under bushes and locations unknown.  I've heard about animals going off to die somewhere and have been really fearful.  This week, Claudia is getting tons of wet food treats and head rubs.  

I caught my first glimpse of Claudia in July 2019.  She was feral...

fleeing our first encounter

...but quickly got used to her new family.

We both love her so much and are trying to sneak outside as often as possible to give her the love and attention that she deserves!

I'm glad that she's finally getting some warmer weather.  It's been so chilly and rainy this spring.  Some flowers have loved it...

my 'Roguchi' clematis

late-blooming poppies

lambs ear

...but most flowers have been unhappy, including my poor annual cutting garden.  My last-minute planting of the easiest flowers - zinnias, cosmos, marigolds - have produced a handful of seedlings, a few desultory sunflowers (how?!?), and weeds.  It's too late to plant more seeds.  The garden is toast this year.  At least I can take a break from the seeding, potting up, and planting out of grumpy seedlings that don't tend to make it past the first few days.  Next year I'll start over with new seed and hopefully will have better luck.  

Tons of critters around, at least!  In the frequently foggy mornings...

...I see lots of deer.

eyeballing my sunflowers...

Some cool caterpillars...

grub worm

bronze cutworm moth caterpillar 

...and other insects.

syrphid fly

eriophyes tiliae, the red nail gall mite

another gall wasp, the wool sower

I've found some really exciting spiders, too (skip the next few pictures if you're spider-averse)!

This is a northern male black widow spider, only slightly venomous and less aggressive than the female.

Ditto this red ant-mimic spider.

Check out this wolf spider and her egg sac!

Todd has informed me that we have "record humidity" settling in for the next few weeks, so I'll be spending less time outside...and more time inside with these guys...

Frances and Calliope, an uneasy truce

Frances nap

...and just outside, with this gal.

Have a great week!

All Creatures Great and Small

We have our 'indoor creatures':

But there's been a remarkable amount of wildlife around our property, outside, too.  Just this afternoon, I spotted a red fox trotting down by our fireplace.  Yesterday, I saw a barred owl there.  At first, I thought he was injured, because he was flattened out on the ground.

Soon he raised up and hopped a bit...

I don't know exactly what he was doing...hunting?  resting?  Regardless, he flew away shortly thereafter.  I'm very fond of our barred owls and hear them hooting in the woods almost daily.  They have the delightful call of "Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for you?"  You can hear it here. 

Of course, since we live by the woods, we have lots of deer.

Lots of very tame deer who don't mind if you get quite close.

Sometimes we hear them barking/screaming in the woods at night.  It's the noise they make when they feel threatened.  Creepy! 

I startled this little guy in the front garden - a Fowler's Toad.

This one, too:  a harvestman, partially hidden by a leaf:

Overturn a few rocks here, and there's a good chance you'll see Greenhouse Millipedes.  Heck, we even find them in our bathroom from time to time!  They love moist, dark places.  

During another trip to the garden, I noticed what seemed to be a walking piece of fluff.

I looked closer and then gave the end a gentle pinch so I could take a photo for later identification.

He scurried away, and I got to work figuring out his identity.  Turns out he's a lacewing larva, and an absolutely fascinating creature!  In a real case of "wolf in sheep's clothing", the lacewing larva will pile debris on its back in order to sneak closer to prey (mainly aphids) undetected by aphids or their protector, the ant (ants and aphids have a symbiotic relationship.  Aphids produce food for ants, and ants protect aphids from predators).  This larva, covered by a bit of fluff, is looking for an aphid colony to infiltrate.  Impressive!

I don't have to go much beyond my front door to find insects.  The door is recessed, a type of alcove, and all sorts of insects cling to the walls in the protected space.  Last week I saw a curiously shiny spider there, and, after doing some research, realized that it was a black widow spider.

 

We've all heard about female black widows - venom 15 times more toxic than that of a rattlesnake, aggressive, cannibalistic.  Well, this is a male, and while those two round orbs on top of his head are 'biting mechanisms', they rarely bite and are not aggressive.  They are much smaller than the females.

A lightning bug is caught in a nearby web:

Between the spiders, the webs, and the prey, you can see why I have to clean this area so frequently!

I had a large insect collection as a child.  I caught them, put them in a jar with a rubbing alcohol-soaked cotton ball, and pinned them to a framed board.  I haven't started another one, even though I'm still so interested in insects.  I feel guilty snatching them from the wild for my own purposes, even though I know I shouldn't.  To combat this guilt, I decided to order some insects that were raised for the express purpose of display.  With my shadow box and a carefully-cut piece of foam core, I was ready!  First I laid out the specimens in different ways to determine what order they'd be pinned in.

 Next, I typed out their Latin names and did another sample layout:

I didn't have any entomology pins, but I did have ones for sewing.  Now, apparently different insects are pinned through different parts of the body, but I wasn't that particular here.

Inserted into shadow box frame and done!

Going with my theme, I also bought some pages from a vintage children's book that feature insects in the drawings.  Love!  I hope to get them framed in the next week or so. 

Keep your eyes open when you go outside...who knows what little creatures you'll see!

Have a great week!