Little Caterpillar

Little caterpillar, da da dee da da....  Can't get that song out of my head.  This little orange caterpillar is finally on his way.  It sure better hurry since fall is here to stay.

Going to decorate for Halloween today.  Found this little ginger guy in my indian corn.

He is pretty furry.  Asps are furry and have a powerful sting so I'm not touching it just in case.

Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

And for a real scare, here is a cowkiller.  A little over an inch long, this furry bug has armor.  The reason I know this is that when the kids were in school, they had to turn in a bug collection for a school project.  As we tried to push a pin through one, it wouldn't hardly pierce the shell and it let out a banshee scream - (buzz?).  We let it go after that.

Anyway, in spring, they are tiny ant-like things and by the end of summer they are this big.  And fast.  This is the best shot I could get after chasing it around.  One of my kids was stung by a tiny one and it was painful, so I'd imagine the big ones HURT.  Any volunteers? I don't know if they could really kill a cow, but wouldn't want to get stung by one.  They are quite common at the farm, hurriedly going on their way.

Autumn

Though it is officially fall, it doesn't feel like it yet, but there are signs.  This cottonwood leaf floated by on the lake this morning.

Before I took all of your advice last year, not to pull up plants I couldn't identify, I plucked all of these umbrella like plants in the patio bed, certain they were weeds.  Well, look what they turned out to be.  Every shade of flower from fuchsia to coral and pink.  I have no clue what they are, but will remember them next year.

One last clematis blossom for the year.

Okay, my distaste for large blossomed flowers has been swayed.  I now like the cannas and the other ones are growing on me.  I'm still trying to smile at the hibiscus.

These have popped up all around this last week of summer.  Spider lilies or fairy lilies perhaps? A nice surprise nonetheless.

Mrs. Mantis, in prayer and laden with eggs, will lay them soon; I wish she could over-winter under bark, but I guess that is the way things happen.

We have had the city house for nearly a year now - have seen the gardens throughout the year. Though the garden has peaked, it has been a good year of growing.  

I planted potato vines that cascaded over the eight foot drop from the patio to the bottom yard.  The chartreuse was spectacular.   I learned that some of the coleus I planted grew too tall for this bed as it shaded out other plants and somewhat obscured the lake view. I really had nowhere to plant new things and will fit in some small bulbs and seed the beds in the spring. 

 All in all, it was a good year in the garden. I am not looking forward to that first freeze and will miss all the color, but will try to find interesting things in the winter garden.

Oklahoma Shakes

It happened about two weeks ago.  My weenies woke me and we were on the couch in the living room.  At about 7:00am, the sound of a jet's engines began and the weenies started to bark.  Then the shaking began.  There was a whole lot of shaking going on. Unbelievable rockin' and rollin'.  A 5.8 on the Richter scale.  This time I knew what was happening.  My first thought was that it was the New Madrid Fault rupturing.   Last time that happened, it caused the mighty Mississippi River to run backwards.  The last New Madrid quake was huge (7 or more) and occurred about 100 years ago.  It is past due for a repeat and will be terrible.

Ours lasted for one minute, but seemed longer.  I jumped up and ran to the back door to see what the lake out back was doing.  It jiggled like a bowl of jello.  As the shaking slowed, I heard the sound move away to the south then vanish.  It was a trip.

I looked around the house for damage. They say look at the chimney as that will show damage first.  I'm looking for cracks in sidewalks and patios and walls etc. A couple of days later, I noticed the overlapped wood on the chimney had fallen loose. Our rooftop is steep and with varied pitches; I don't know what you call it, but we (hubby, as I would have rolled off the roof in seconds) had to borrow a ladder tall enough to get up there and screw the wood down.  Not much damage that I have found, but the town at the epicenter had lots of damage as did many houses in my city.

This quake was caused by greedy oil and gas czars, fracking our state to death.  They dispose of the chemical filled water by-products from the drilling process deep underground, which has caused Oklahoma to have more quakes than California.  A few years ago, we had two quakes.  The last two years, in the thousands.  The oil companies won't (with help from politicians and lobbyists) divulge what is in the noxious chemical mix, but groundwater and aquifers are being poisoned.  I could go on, but won't.  They did shut down some of the disposal wells, but that was after the fact.

Insurers will sell us quake insurance, not covered on homeowners policies, but the deductibles are 20% of the cost of the house.  Can you imagine?  I believe that this is just one of the reasons our country is facing such a political mess.  The masses have had enough. 

A Little Help From My Friends

Not such a clear pic from my iPhone, but thought this little dead moth worthy of a photo.  I think it was a female from its small antennae.  If you look on its back there is a beautiful rendition of an orchid, perhaps an iris...

BTW ~ while searching high and low for simple instructions to add a watermark to some of my art and photos (I told you I saw some of my art on Instagram) and to make it more difficult, it is a different process on the Mac than Windows. Anyway, I found a disturbing little fact I didn't know.  Where's Picasa?  Google did away with it.  I'm usually the last to know, but was unnerved by this.  Supposedly, there was a way to watermark your photos there.  And, I'm worried about losing some of my favorite photos.

Anyone know about Picasa vs. Google photo? Can you watermark art/photos on Google Photo?

September

Older.  Wiser?  This is a favorite song from one of my all time favorite movies - Harold and Maude.  It still makes me laugh.  Long ago and far away.

And to make you laugh, I'm going to learn to play it on my ukulele.  Sunday and piddling around.  I should play it outside to make my neighbors laugh too.

Reading And Different Things

Why do I try?  I've spent the morning trying to figure out how to do different things on the computer.  Maddening.  Nothing has worked though I have googled, youtubed and bloggered.  I am about to pull my hair out. That's not funny.  Time wasted, FRUSTRATED and, I'll have to fiddle around more later as I'm done (or not done) after this post until I can get my space pleasing to my eye again.  It has been a very long time since I last changed anything.

Nevertheless, I am reading this book.  I'll not tell you about it till I finish.