Our big rain was over a week ago. After a summer of 100 degrees everyday and no rain, the fields and most yards were yellow. One big gusher and a few days and almost everything is green again. We did have some losses, and I think the accounting is not finished, but I was surprised by rain lilies and school house lilies this week.
We do get the occasional chitinous creature roaming inside the house, and if the cats don’t get to it, I do try to take it outside. My preferred method is a clear plastic cup (so I can see, plastic is lighter than glass, and if I loose my nerve and drop it, I don’t break anything), and a sheet of card stock. The cup goes over the critter, the card stock slides underneath, and the whole contraption is taken outside.
This grass spider was released near the stock tank garden, promoted to captain of the guardian army, and tasked with ejecting (by whatever means necessary) the unfriendlies that would eat the produce.
My house spiders do not get this treatment, as long as they stay in the upper corners, they are left alone to hunt flies. Did you know the house spider also hunts other spiders? Including the brown recluse. Welcome home, house spider.
I have embarked on a new long-term knitting project: a rainbow scarf in brioche knit with vertical stripes of color. The yarn is from Wanderlust Fiber Co in Dallas TX, and it was purchased through a fundraiser through JuJu Knits for #LGBQTSaves. I reached out to the yarn dyers for more of the sparkly white so I had enough to back all the color in the scarf. The most terrifying thing about this project is if all those beautiful colors get tangled (seriously, the horror). So I devised a method to keep it all from turning to rainbow spaghetti. Enter one of DIYers top three multipurpose supplies: the pool noodle. (Which has a close following to duct tape and hot glue.) I cut a length of pool noodle, then slit it down the side to make a clamp for the center pull balls of yarn. The pressure on the yarn keeps the balls from rolling or swinging about, and since they are center-pull, the yarn feeds out easily.
The colors came in mini skeins, which, once they are wound into cakes, are a perfect size for a pool noodle clamp. As I knit the colored rows, I do need to watch carefully which way to route the yarn, but if I do mess up, I can take the tangled yarn out of the clamp, untangle, and slide it back in place. No worries.
The sparkly white stays out of the clamp, because it runs its rows independently of the colors. It is working quite well. And the pool noodle sits along my thigh when I sit in my chair and stays put.
This is definitely not a travel project, it stays in the knitting bag by my chair. So it will be in process for while. I’ll post updates as construction continues.
Ok, so that is a cool name, even if it is more fitting for a winter fairy than a hummingbird moth. The good folks on iNaturalist provided the ID. I found it before the wings filled out.
The Snowberry Clearwing (yup, going to use the full name every time, ‘cause wow), pupates in leaf litter and one of the host plants for the caterpillar is honeysuckle, so it makes sense that they find our front arbor a good home since it is full of several varieties of honeysuckle and mulched with leaf litter. I have to come clean, I wasn’t the first to spot it. Maybe this blurry photo will give you a clue who did.
I was able to rescue Snowberry Clearwing and help it to perch out of the cat’s reach, much to Sophie’s dismay. I saw the moth again, or maybe another moth but I would like to think it was the rescued Snowberry Clearwing, on the Abelia bushes across the walk.
Fair travels to you, Snowberry Clearwing, may the wind be always at your back.
On a lark, I planted some winter squash seeds in my stock tank garden bed. There should be enough time before our first freeze for the squash to develop (I hope), and the melons have been doing so well there, maybe squash will too.
It was very exciting when the seeds sprouted 5 days later! We had a whopper of a rain (for here, and especially with the drought) that brought 3.5 inches in a day, according to my glass rain gauge. It is damp all over, and my frog army has dispersed. I will have to get my sprays back out since my vines have lost their multitude of guardians.
Critters and Craft 