Bits and Bites

This is an odd assortment of things I wanted to post so here goes:

My pregnant guppy didn't make it. She expired sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning. Sometimes the stress of not delivering (and I was waiting for a long time) can kill them. So she received an unceremonious funeral (don't ask). Despite having purchased her and the other two guppies as food for other creatures, I had grown rather fond of the cantankerous thing, so was quite saddened for a moment. then I went to work. Life goes on.

Four of us from the Sackville Rivers Association cleaned up a small section Saturday morning. The rain held off thankfully so only our boots or hip waders were getting wet. The crap we pulled out of the river? As Linda would say, "Shit Marie!"
We yanked out a computer monitor in a couple of pieces, a child's wading pool, a perfectly good (though now crap) baseball mitt, a few tennis and golf balls, a golf bag, a tank like one for oxygen or carbonated beverages, a wooden toy sword, a toy gun, a broken knife, several stacking chairs from school (all beyond salvage), a school desk, two pylons, one political campaign sign, two bicycle wheels, a sofa chair (why they didn't just leave it on their front lawn to wait for someone to take it instead of lugging it back through the woods and dumping it in the stream is beyond me), and piles of paper, plastic, and other garbage.

I took a couple of pictures while I was there. The first one is of apple blossoms.



The next one is the ladybug on the broken tree stump. There are a kajillion species of ladybugs including two-spotted, 13 spotted, red, black, and many other colours. I swear I rarely see the same species twice except for the typical 13 spotted one. The one I saw yesterday has beautiful black and cream colouring. It's head is pointed down (in case you couldn't tell).

I also came across a lovely patch of wild violets though I didn't snap a pic. They were in a part of the woods that's not easily accessible to walkers (in fact you pretty much need a machete to get through that part but I was wearing boots so waded in the river to the spot) so I almost felt that I'd be invading their privacy if I took a pic. So I didn't. But the Wookie and I went back tonight. Of course there were torrential downpours last night and I couldn't even get close to the patches of violets. I did stumble upon a different patch so that's what I'm showing you.


Then, coming out of the lane I was sweeping the bushes at knee level and below and something rather colourful caught my eye.



Wow!! I had seen a plastic bag at the start of our walk so sent the Wookie back for it to hold my catch. This fella had recently come out of its cocoon and was still drying off and pumping up its wings. Into the bag went the reed, cocoon and moth and it should be ready for flight in a few hours. Not that I'll let it fly. I have it in a bucket right now and I'll cover the top with saran wrap to keep it in good shape 'til tomorrow afternoon for preparation to add to my collection. By the way, it's a Cecropia moth.



The other thing I wanted to mention is statistics. I love the analytics feature of Blogger. You can see where everybody is from who visits your blog. And what colour monitor they have or some such thing. You can also see what they're looking for and those are the funny stats I like. "Penis Vagina and Breasts" brought a great number of people to the blog as I knew it would. People looking for stuff about "The Monkey's Paw" brought a fair number as well. I was a little surprised but I guess the story has as much impact on them as it did on me.

As for what people are searching for? How about "boyfriend training mouth feel method"? Or "6 legged jumping insects in Virginia". By definiton, an insect has 6 legs. So "jumping insects in Virginia would have sufficed. Or "actress celebrities squishing bugs". I'd like to know which ones are squishing bugs. No Super Hero Bug Saving Awards for them.

Or "beetle impending doom". Hmmmm....they bring me joy. Or "bugs in pubic hair what do they look like". I don't want to know who was looking for that. Or "geographical features named after bugs"; That one sounds cool. Or "little league baseball never hit the ball". So, I'm not the only one who couldn't play baseball. Or "pubic hair I like it". Or "tired as a fridge freezer". Never thought freezers got tired. But the best one "you can pick your friends and you can poop at work". Thank heavens.