Now What?

Molly managed to suck this giant spider up into the vacuum.  But now what?  Who wants to open the thing? It's currently residing on the back porch pending bravery and high temperatures cooking the arachnid.

Wildlife in my backyard

We have a really pretty pond.  If you squint.

And you don't mind green water.  

I have spent the last three days working about ten hours a day on cleaning it up.

I'm sunburned, scratched, smashed, and weary.  

I have major hangnails, broken nails, and permanently stained nails.  

I smell like pond water, my hair is disgustingly dry and I'm running out of band aids.

And a friend commented on Facebook that perhaps I shouldn't be in this pond with cuts or open sores.  

Thanks so much..... Haha.  

I'm not really afraid of getting Swamp Fever or whatever....

The fish like to swim up and nudge you and give kisses and such when you are in there.  

They are wondering what that enormous white thing is in their 'house.' 

And I keep reminding myself that those are FISH.  Even though the water is icky and I can't see them.

The nudges have to be fish. 

Cause if they aren't,

they might be snakes.

(Did I tell you we had a snake in the pond all last summer?

I didn't go wading any then.  And it was kinda big) 

I found this baby one a day or two ago.  I hope he's not part of an undiscovered litter.

I know he's tiny but I'm getting sick of snakes!  

A few days ago, there was a big bull snake looking one in the front yard--long and fat.

Then when I was cleaning up some leaves, a pinkish one flipped out of his hiding place under them

and slid away too fast for me to catch/kill/photograph!  

Now this.  

I had just moved that rock.  Shudder

I sprinted for the porch, grabbed my camera and a bucket

and caught him before he could slither away.

(What?  You don't grab your camera when you go to catch a snake? 

The real unbelievable part is that I sprinted!)

I had the presence of mind to turn on the camera 

as I 'raced' back to the snakey rock.

Then I caught him in a bucket and killed him with a shovel.

(And I put a hole in my bucket.  Another dollar bucket, down the tubes.)

See how tiny he is?  I'm a murderess.

But he was striking and hissing and being ugly.

And after I cut him in two, (or her, whatever)
He continued to strike and hiss till I cut his head off.

And then I buried him in a gopher run.

And today, I saw these on the fence:

Lady bugs (good) or Asian Lady Beetles (not good).
They both eat aphids but the Asian ones tend to swarm and are indoor pests.

Ah well.

I forgot to take a picture of the 20 million (more or less) Black widow spider egg sacs
I saw when cleaning up leaves.  Sorry you missed it.

Horrifying and Fascinating!

I was out in the backyard this evening, filling the bird feeder and being disgusted with the number of mole and gopher mounds, runs, and just torn up places in the yard from them.  This poor plant below has lasted through an amazing number of blights this summer.  This part of the flower garden gets the same amount of water as the rest but is always excessively dry.  I'm theorizing that perhaps there is a giant mole den beneath it and the water just drains away.  But then if that were the case, there wouldn't be a mole den there, would there?  

I keep pulling this weed out of the middle of the rose moss and it just keeps growing back.  

So I noticed that on top of everything else, a mole had made a run all the way around the plant.  I was pushing the dirt down with my feet and a crawling critter made it's way to the top of the plant away from my stomping shoe.

You can barely see it there in the midst of the pathetic looking flower--a wolf spider covered with babies.  I've never seen this before--my sister has horror stories about them but I've missed out.  And I'll say, I'm so glad I saw this outside and not in the house!

Warning--I really want you to get the horrifying and fascinating aspect of this natural phenomenon so I've cropped and enlarged the spider.

If you don't like close up creepy crawly pictures you'd better stop now!

I tried to warn you!  Isn't that just horrifying?  And yet fascinating at the same time!

Here's the loving mother from the front.

My skin is crawling from enhancing these pictures!  My feet itch, my hair is creepy feeling and I'm grossed out.

Yet so amazed at the things that God created.  Every creature has a part to play in the world.

Even Spiders.

Even Moles.

Even ticks and bed bugs.

(Are you itchy yet???)

Bird of Prey

Sadly, the 'prey' is often the top of an innocent bystander's head.  

This is the second year that a pair of Mississippi Kites have nested in our maple tree.

If you happen to be walking nearby, a hat is advised.  Mama and Papa Kite are quite fierce hair snatchers.

This has been another presentation of  "Backyard Wildlife with the Castors."

Cat's got your???

Patch the cat was amusing us last night with her hunting/playing antics in the back yard.  We assumed she was mole hunting.  I wish it had been a mole.  As you can see from the dead grass, they are messing up my yard--dead spots, tunnels, craters.

Unfortunately it was this narrow fellow she was taunting!

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

BY EMILY DICKINSON

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides –

You may have met Him - Did you not

His notice sudden is –

The Grass divides as with a Comb –

A spotted Shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your Feet

And opens further on –

He likes a Boggy Acre   

A Floor too cool for Corn –

But when a Boy, and Barefoot

I more than once at Noon

Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled, and was gone –

Several of Nature’s People

I know and they know me –

I feel for them a transport

Of Cordiality –

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And Zero at the Bone.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (Harvard University Press, 1998)

Pole Cat!

I haven't posted in a couple of days and now I am avoiding doing lesson plannish stuff.


We have a dog. Her name is Daisy.

She is the World's Most Spoiled Dog.

Every night we take Daisy out to the back yard for her 'little walk' before bed.

Last week, Daisy's nightly exploration of the flower bed was interrupted by a stranger--a black and white, tail waiving stranger.

I didn't know dogs could say "erp."

She and I raced to the back door.  I won, barely--I had to smack her on the head with my book so I could get in without her.  Then I had to throw my stinky book away.  And it was by my favorite author--Richard Peck!

So The World's Most Spoiled Dog is now living on the back yard.  I like it!  Except for at meal time when she stands at the window and stares at us.  But that is why we have curtains!

We are thinking of changing her name to Skunkerina.  I think it has a certain air!

(By the way, I know all the bathing remedies but we had company this weekend and didn't want eu de skunke perfuming our house and, well, now, I like her out there!  I promise she will get to come in.  Somedayyyyyyyy.)

It was a week for Snakes!

While describing (and perhaps embellishing) our snake catching escapades to my parents and my grandma, They filled us in on the snake hunts going on in their neck of the woods!

Junne, my parent's neighbor down the road, lives in an old house.  She was having a new floor furnace installed (Wow! They still make those things?) and the guy asked her if she knew there was a snake in her basement.  Well yes, as a matter of fact, she did know that but really hadn't worried about it because a bull snake in the basement means fewer mice upstairs!  Country philosophy, ya know!  And she didn't go down there much anyway--just to get more canning jars or cart down a box of old dishes.  But she decided she might as well call her son to come get the snake out of there.  When Clifford arrived, she informed him that the last she knew it was in a box of jars and he could just close the flaps and carry it upstairs and outside.  Easy!

So down into the cellar they went.  His mom directed him to the appropriate box where he proceeded to close the flaps. Then the contents of the box gave a distinctive rattle.

Cliff and his mom weren't long in getting out of that basement, I'll bet. They decided to call the local snake catcher who works at the Co-Op.  He assured them he'd be there in thirty minutes!  Fast service, I'll say! He arrived post-haste and proceeded to catch the snake and remove it from the snug basement home.

I think Junne has decided she really doesn't need anything down in her basement now.  She's a little afraid the snake might have friends. And they can just have the storage portion of the house!

Frantic Hungry Kitten

While not sleeping (as usual) on a night when the moon was just-past-full out at my parents house, I decided to go sit on the porch and play Solitaire on my phone.  We have no phone service out there so that was all that was available for entertainment!  Sad, isn't it.  But I didn't want to turn on any lights to read and I had forgotten the password I had chosen a few months ago for my mom's computer.  Man, I hate it when that happens.  I really wanted to check out the status of our group in Romania, but it was not to be.

So outside I went.  Yes, in my nightgown.  Barefoot.  No flashlight.  It was a beautiful night.  The moonlight illuminated the pastures and fields and I could pick out landmarks almost as well as if the sun were shining.  And the temperature was great.  The wind was blowing gently, the crickets and the locusts were giving their nighttime serenade.  I was hoping that soon, I would be too drowsy to decide where the red jack went in the game and I would be back in dreamland soon.

Did I mention that my parents have a new kitten?  They have plenty of cats, but since the barn cats are a bit wild, my dad brought this new toy home for my niece to play with when they were out visiting last week.  Yes the barn cats are wild.  So is the new kitten, it turns out.  He is tame, as in catchable, but ADD when you try to pet it.  It might be part Siamese because it is very vocal and has this lean, hard little body, big ears and an extra long tail.  I had just gotten all comfortable in the chair outside when that little monster began to climb all over me, crying, biting, digging, burrowing in my neck and poking it's head under my arm. I thought perhaps it was hungry.  I went inside and groped around on the cabinet tops for a bit of Daisy's dog food, took it back out and made a neat little pile on the edge of the porch.  The kitten went right to eating, it's tail straight out and quivering with happiness.

Now, I thought, I will have some peace.  I fully expected the kitten to go curl up somewhere and go to sleep since it's tummy was all full, but no, back it came to my lap, once again, crying, nuzzling, sucking on my hair.  Perhaps it was not ready to leave it's momma, but it certainly looked big enough. No amount of pushing and shoving the little monster down made it leave me alone for good.

It's thirsty! I thought.  So I tried to carry the wiggling, squalling thing to the back yard to the water pan by the hydrant.  I had to keep a firm grip on the little beast and I finally let it down near the water.  I headed across the grass, barefooted (and thankful my mom no longer had chickens) to the water pan--attempting to lead the proverbial horse to water.  I even grabbed it and shoved it's little nose down in the water in case it didn't know why we were there, but the little brat tucked itself behind my heels and refused to get a drink.  My eyes searched the darkness, looking for what was scaring the little critter.  I saw two white spots slinking away from the back porch in the dark--it was momma cats from the barn, probably terrorizing the kitten before I came out!  They ran away but seeing them made me nervous to think about what other four-legged creature was hiding in the moon shadows of the trees--perhaps the kind of black and white kitty with a stripe down it's back!  Cautiously I sniffed the air but all I could smell was grass and trees and good country smells.  No whiff of skunk was coming to me in the breeze!

I was enjoying the moonlight, loving the night air, but at that point I gave up.  I quietly let myself back in the house and stretched out on the couch.  Just me and old Sol.

And no cat!

Wordless Wednesday

It seems to be bug week!

Photo Credit--Molly Castor

Butterfly Garden

Saturday was another perfectly gorgeous Fall day. Les and I went to breakfast with our good friends Larry and Laura. We are sad that they will soon be moving away. What started out as a chance meeting one Saturday morning has developed into a weekend breakfast routine! Laura and I catch up on the good garage sales and what neat crafty stuff we've seen. And Les and Larry discuss....well, I'm not sure! Perhaps it's classical literature about whales and such ;).

I helped Sarah photograph the sweet Allen Family--Shane, Ashley and Huck. Huck was very photogenic and sat nicely for several cute pictures. Shane and Ashley took some great photos and I think they should be sent into Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop or Field and Stream. Ash has a slick black bow trimmed in pink and purple and pink fletched arrows. Look out deer!

We noticed after lunch that the last of the summer flowers were covered with butterflies and moths.

Sarah and Les went out and took pictures and since he's not a dedicated blogger like I am (LOL), Les allowed me to post his beautiful pictures here!

Where did the butterflies come from? Were they just hatching out from the warm weather, migrating or just getting in a last flutter before the winter?  Whatever the case, we enjoyed a last fluttery butterfly show.

A Lovely Saturday

Molly took off for Chickasha while we were gone with the Senior Adults and we were too tired to do our usual Saturday routine of get up early, go to McDonalds for breakfast, then hit the garage sales. But being home alone was too quiet!

I suggested that we go fishing at Boiling Springs and it didn't take long to load up the tackle box and the dog and head north!

But we had a problem! All of our stuff is for catching big fish. And at the little lake at Boiling Springs, (Shaul Lake covering 7 acres, if you're interested in minutia) there's plenty of fish--but they are of the perch variety with little mouths. There were a few flies with tiny hooks in the bottom of the tackle box that we weighted but the sunfish weren't interested in them. A group would swim up, give the hook a look-see and leave! We weren't too disappointed because we had a catch and release plan in place before we left the house!

The day was too beautiful to waste so we decided to abandon the fishing and take a walk down to the river.

I was playing around with the picture editor software and oversaturated this one (on purpose!) but I think it looks kind of like those old time-y picture postcards. Have you tried Picasa? If you use Blogger, you already have a Picasa account. It is free to download the picture editing software and is super easy to use.



A boy and his dog. They stayed on the bank while I shed my shoes and socks and wandered up and down the river bed a ways. That way, I'd be rescued should I find myself in quicksand or bitten by a water moccasin or chased by an angry mother hippopotamus. Oh. Wait. Wrong continent....




Cool, cool water.



There were tons of minnows and dragon flies!



I saw lots of tracks while wading in the water. Turkey, large dog (or wolf, if you want to stir the imagination!) deer, racoon, small child (or ancient human), cow (buffalo?). It was fun wading along and looking for signs of other animals. Except for that stick that looked curiously like a snake winding it's way down the bank.....




The world's most spoiled dog. But awfully cute too! Daisy whined when I took my little walk alone. She was worried about me. But she doesn't like water to wade in and Les didn't want to clean her up if she got muddy.



It was a great day and I'm so glad we took the time to go. Maybe we can 'not go fishing' again next weekend! But we'll have to hurry--Fall's coming!

Backyard "WILD" Life

You'd think our backyard would be a peaceful, quiet retreat. And you'd be right--sometimes! After all, we live in a quiet neighborhood. In fact, across the street to the west, behind our neighbor's fence is the city cemetery! Can't get much quieter than that!

But

When no one is watching....

There's a lot of demolition, death and destruction going on!

I really hope these caterpillars that are munching on my gigantic sunflowers are going to be beautiful butterflies--not moths! So far, they've only eaten one plant. When I find them on another sunflower, I pick them up and transport them to the skeletal one!


And this white catfish: Do you see him? cue Jaws music....



He's the guy sticking his whiskers up around the lily pads. He's our resident Water Lily Annihilator. When Les brought him home from the pet store, he was only about 3 inches long and was to help keep the bottom of the pond clean. I'll be out there pulling weeds and hear a giant splash behind me and turn around to see him biting off a mouthful of pink flowers.



He/she/it's grown a bit--the thing is now about two feet long, strong and muscular and just a little revolting looking. He needs a new home in a bigger pond!

And look at this cute, white, cuddly, soft bundle of fur! Isn't she sweet? She can be. And she is the softest cat I've ever petted in my life--her fur is like silk. But beware--she is a might jungle hunter in disguise!


I tell you--the pigeons and other birds are afraid of her! She flattens herself out on the ground, becoming one with the grass (as if) and slowly and patiently stalks her prey. The only giveaway is her madly twitching raccoon ringed tail! I frequently find gnawed avian parts and bird feathers scattered around. Last summer we were even gifted with a hummingbird on the door mat!


Then there's the Mississippi Kites! They must have a nest somewhere near hear because we get tag-team dive-bombed.

I have no picture of these instruments of terror from the skies.

Why?

Because I'm afraid!

I mean, hey, I'm standing out in my backyard, minding my own business--even filling up the bird feeder for heaven's sake!

I hear the rush of wings (well, not really because you know I'd never really hear that!) look up into the sky and stare straight into the eyes of a merciless killer!

I found this picture on the internet so after YOU are hit, you will recognized the bird!


These birds have a mean look, a sharp beak and are just plain scary! Their three foot wing span and sharp, outstretched talons as they approach their victim is intimidating! They eat bugs (good), small amphibians, baby rabbits (boohoo) and small birds.

They are protected and you can't shoot guns in town (but the pressure sprayer is a pretty good deterrent!) so they are multiplying like mad. If you see someone on the walking trail, wearing a hat and waving their hands in the air, that person is not crazy, they are just trying to ward off a bird attack!

A Les Funny:
Back when we lived on Maple, we bought bikes--I think even before Molly was born. Les decided to ride it to school one afternoon during the summer. He was heading south on thirteenth, almost to his destination and something or someone hit him hard on the back of the head! Before he could recover he was hit again and had a bike wreck! He thought he'd been set upon by a street gang or something but no, it was the Mississippi Kite! Okay, it was not such a funny story for him at the time, but now it is.

Except when he is in the backyard, standing there, shaking his fist at the sky and shouting--"You'd better be glad I don't own a gun!"

I just wish he'd take a camera out there with him and snap it at the very last moment....

Before he gets scalped!

Two More Days

Do you ever feel like this?

Because you know you've got to inventory this?

And you'd rather be enjoying this?

Sammy Jay

When I was in Second Grade, my teacher gave every student in her class the gift of a book at the end of the school year--all seven of us!

My book was Mother West Wind 'How' Stories by Thornton W. Burgess and contained chapters with titles like: 'How Old King Eagle Won His White Head' and 'How Mr. Flying Squirrel Almost Got Wings.' Burgess was a naturalist who wrote 170 books in his lifetime! They all promoted the love of nature and conservation.

I loved this book and read it many times--mostly cause we didn't have too many chapter books at home--but also because Burgess had such delightful names for everything--all the animals had a name--Peter Rabbit, Joe Otter, Sammy Jay. And they played together in lovely spots in the Green Forest--The Smiling Pool, the Old Briar Patch, The Green Meadows, The Lone Path. I loved it when Grandfather Frog said "Chug-a-rum," when he began to tell a story!

I was sitting on my porch this evening when I heard a raucous scream from a bird in the yard. I looked up and there sat Sammy Jay--straight from the Mother West Wind book! There he was, perched right on my back fence--all dressed in his sky blue coat!

"It seems as if Old Mother Nature must have cut off a little piece of the sky when it was bluest on a a summer day to make Sammy Jay's coat, and that she must have taken a tiny strip from the whitest cloud to trim it with. And then she gave him a smart cap and a black collar and a waistcoat of just the softest grayish white that shows off his blue coat best. Old Mother Nature certainly was feeling very good indeed when she planned Sammy Jay's clothes."

Truthfully, I had not thought of the stories in a long time, and hadn't realized I knew what sound a Blue Jay makes, but those long ago tales came flooding back to me when I saw the blue jay swoop at the bid feeder, chasing away the other birds and flouncing and pecking about for seed on the ground by himself. He had made a grand announcement of his presence from the fence!

If you've never had the pleasure of reading any of Thornton W. Burgess' tales, visit here. These stories are great read alouds to kids!

And if you've never explored Project Gutenberg, go there now! There are over 28,000 free e-books available for download!