The antennae on this critter!! I have found these in my garden before, and had trouble photographing their sweeping feelers that seem to reach over three times their body length. I did not realize that they are a kind of katydid and that the immense antenna length is one of the distinguishing factors between Katydids and Grasshoppers. It matches the abelia bush nicely too, with its stem-colored stripe down the back.
Missy was quite concerned when I opened up the seam on her bed and started stuffing polyfill in.
The round was decidedly not round, but rather sad and nearly flat. I obtained more stuffing and, in a matter of minutes, had the bed filled to a firm feel and the seam resewn. Once the dog bed was back on the ground, Missy relaxed and crawled in. I guess I am forgiven!
Well, maybe not a requiem – more like an enthusiastic wake. That’s not quite right either. I held the vigil, and the chickens crazed. Hm. Feeding frenzy. There is the phrase. The katydid really didn’t have a chance, clinging to the inside of the hardware cloth of the run. My hens are sharp-eyed surveyors of their enclosure, and most bugs are quickly snapped up and devoured. Grasshoppery things rank the most delectable apparently because it was an all-out war over parts. Thank you for supplementing the hens’ diet, katydid.
Three colors of alpaca, three ply yarn; seems a natural choice for my continued color combination experiments. I carded the colors separately again, but this time added a little silk to each preparation (as I have read that silk and alpaca complement each other), and then spun the colors individually. Taking the inside end of each tiny yarn ball, I plied them together. This made an interesting visual effect, very bold upclose.
I put some temporary fencing up around my container garden because the tops of my carrots kept disappearing. I suspected rabbits. It was not rabbits. Shortly after the leaves came back, they were gone again, despite the heavy wire guarding them. Maybe grasshoppers are the culprits. I don’t think I will be getting any carrots this year, although they valiantly keep trying to produce leaves. (Yes, I’m growing them in a feed bag, which isn’t very deep, but they are globe carrots, so they don’t need depth. But leaves would be helpful.)
Critters and Craft 