Month: April 2024

Convergent Lady Beetle

On By CarynIn Wildlife, Flora

I learned something new when I snapped a picture of a lady bug resting on a Gregg’s mist flower leaf and uploaded it to iNaturalist. The name of my friendly neighborhood native is the Convergent Lady Beetle, because of the “two short white lines on the black pronotum (shoulderlike section behind the head) that converge toward each other.” (Mdc.mo.gov) The markings are harder to see in my picture, but these are the most common of the 500 lady beetle species in the US.

Photo description: Convergent Lady Beetle with my finger as the background

The Gregg’s mist flower is doing its job of attracting pollinators and helpful insects. Our front garden bed is full of the mist flowers and Common Yellow Wood Sorrel, which are also native and edible. The yellow and purple are nice together, and the density of their leaves is blocking out other unwanted growth, which means less weeding for me!

Really, he fits

On By CarynIn Cats
Photo description: Gray tabby (15 pounds) sitting in front of two open cat carriers

Our two female cats had their vet visits, and since Thor the cat’s visit is coming up, I wanted to make sure he would fit in our current carriers. I was not hopeful, but I poked him in one and he was able to turn around and come out, which is one of the criteria to show the carrier is big enough. The crates are rated to 20 pounds, which has to be liquid cat measurements, because there is no humane way our stiff, dense, 20-pound dog would fit.

Photo description: Gray tabby inside, filling up a cat carrier, photo credit to my eldest

Later, my eldest was in the right position to snap a picture when Thor crawled into the carrier on his own, turned around, and laid down. Yay.

Guess what I’ve been doing

On By CarynIn music
Photo description: the finger tips of my left hand with deep linear indentations

If you’ve read my blog for even a short while, it is clear that I am a dabbler. Many things catch my inquisitive attention, I like a puzzle, and I’m easily distracted. Making music takes more concentration, but I still can’t focus on just one instrument. My latest enamor is the ukulele. My kids gave me a tenor uke for Mother’s Day a couple years back, and I recently changed out the strings to make it a low G ukulele. I love it! I would like to build a small repertoire, to expand past the dabbling a bit, and my fingertips are reflecting the work. I feel that this fits in this blog because music is craft, even though it is hard to capture in photos.

Fawn

On By CarynIn Wildlife

I haven’t checked the trail cam in a couple months, and when I did there were only 39 pictures. Several of those 39, though, were of a Doe and her fawn.

Photo description: night vision scene with momma deer on alert and her young one investigating the ground

I wasn’t sure at first if the smaller one was a fawn, or if the picture had some perspective magic happening, since there are not visible spots on the fawn. A quick internet image search brings up other night vision photos of fawns where the spots don’t show up. Interesting.

Kazoo catch

On By CarynIn Craft, Life Hack

My chorus is using kazoos as a training device to learn to increase resonance. To keep the kazoo close, I made a lanyard with sliding knots and a Lucet cord.

Photo description: kazoo secured to a sliding knot loop with the rest of the cord braided with a Lucet fork. Antler Lucet fork in the background.

It took me a couple hours to braid and knot the cord, and it is rather fiddly to work. When I stepped away, my brain came up with a much simpler way. Here is a video on how to do a simple, removable wrap on a kazoo using a string necklace (large loop of string).

Sometimes it is good to take a step back, or go do something else for a while, or go for a walk, to let ideas coalesce.