Full Monarch Birthing Moon

That Full Monarch Birthing Moon is sneaking up on Ol Possum quickly. We will have quite a show on Halloween night and Sunday as well. With Zeta streaking through being whipped by a cold front we should have the finest moon gazing of the year.

I don't know about your acreage on this big warm wet marble but Monarchs are scarce on my rectangle. Kristie, a Colleague on campus, and on third floor in Hamilton Hall, is a Geology instructor and a fine photographer. This week she shared photos and video of the Monarch birthing process. Kristie gardens at home for Monarchs with milkweed plantings. Two weeks ago she shared a video of a caterpillar morphing into a chrysalis, it was a different individual than that one she shared yesterday but what a fine reminder of how amazing our habitat is.

Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.

-Thomas Berry

9-30-20 Beautiful moon rise, tart red wine chilled to perfection, P and I raised a glass to you our friends.

10-1-20 Full Okra Moon rose tonight in orange splendor, after a perfectly clear day this moon must be colored by farmer-caused smoke from burning sugar cane residue off of the fields, or...

ALL ART HAS THREE SUBJECTS

In the savanna bog, where rainfall moves

in slow running sheets, pinewoods tree frog

crouches above a water column

inside the mouth of pitcher plant flava,

awaiting the fly that invariably surrenders to sweet.

The tree frog feeds, then defecates

a rising mound, body parts of insects

sodden with nitrogen. That dark milk, 

in turn, drains to the heart of the red-stalked 

carnivore. It blossoms brilliant yellow.

From here life ebbs, from here it springs

without question-- life and death, death and life.

yet one cannot help but think of love.

The flower loves the sky that loves the bog

that loves the fly that loves even the frog.

           HaHaaaa! Thank you Janisse Ray, A house of Branches 

10-6-20 New storm forming below the Yucatan, oh my!

10-7-20 Looking like the cone is right over my back yard, oh shoots!

10-8-20 Beta shifting over to west, shucks, Lake Chuck may get it again, poor people. 

Lots of RTHB (hummer) activity, better fill those feeders! WhoooWeee they and we are loving it!

10-9-20 Storm closing in on us, path to west. Thank God, I'm not sure I have another cleanup in me. RTHB feeding frenzy.

1-10-20 Cool and breezy morning after. Quiet, no power, one broken tree, twigs and leaves. Crank off the generator, oops there goes the quiet. That first night when everyone was out of electricity and before the generators began, it was so peaceful and quiet and dark, oh my! What a treat to see the stars, like we have not seen in years, there was no light pollution anywhere. Oh if that could have only lasted. We cracked the windows and allowed the cool breeze to blow over us. Rachel and Chuck came over after lunch to cut up big debris even before they did their own landscape.

THE GARLAND

I would like to be laid to rest in a big tomb topped by a stone figure of an angel,

who appears to have landed there in order to sob forevermore,

her face buried in her bent arm, 

one folded wing hanging by her side.

Then, whenever I found the time to visit my own grave,

after approaching with slow respectful steps, 

I would place around her rough neck

the garland of wildflowers that I knitted, 

then run back to the car, laughing and immortal!

                                                        --Billy Collins

10-11-20 Residual cleanup, twigs and leaves, no biggie. Noted skinks jumping up out of grass and debris piles to snatch up tropical sod webworm moths Herpetograma  phacopteralis. Tree frogs out in grass snatching same adult moth as skinks, pretty cool y'all. Feeding frenzy.

10-13-20 In early dawn magnificance and calm waning crescent fingernail and morning star stand out in the clear morning air. Weak cool front seems to have moved all the RTHB out of my country, boy I sure miss them.

10-14-20 Ms. Karen, P's boss who is just a kid, reminded me of the beauty of those starlit nights and the quiet, of course she is an old soul. 

Not a RTHB in sight or any hummer, sigh. As I stepped out into the yard this morning I disturbed a pair of Barred Owls from an unfamiliar perch mid yard. What a thrill for an older guy who gardens for hummers, arthropods and song birds.

10-15-20 Lone hummer on patio checking out scarce Lantana and Penta flowers.

10-16-20 No hummers.

10-17-20 A lone RTHB. Cool and breezy, the finest of days.

Another male RTHB, really cool to see, may be the same male.

10-18-20 Hummer twice, lone male RT. Then a large hummer with a different color on back, not sure could be a winter species.

10-22-20 I walked out to fill the girls water reservoir (5 gallon bucket connected to drinking fountain by a rubber hose). I was in the coop doing my work, the girls were out enjoying the treat I just threw on the ground to distract them and keep them from under foot when I heard but did not pay much attention to the Blue Jays going off in the near woods edge. All of a sudden the girls were paniced, piled up against the coop wire. A fast flying hawk, trailed by a string of screaming blue birds, buzzed them and landed a low branch of a tree on the other side of the coop. Of course I broke that up when I stepped into the yard and saved the ladies. Y'all, this is big excitement! For the hawk, the girls and me too!

10-23-2020 I have noted the number of Green Anole lizards andTree Frogs are down from last year, by maybe half, still lots, but fewer. Also down are the Mediteranian Geccos, who I do not miss at all.

10-24-20 No RTHB since 18th, Maybe they are gone. I have been seeing shadows in my periferal vision. I know, I know, old guy stuff. I think some of that, what I see what I believe to be smaller birds, perhaps small hummers, Rufus or Allen's hummers, winter hummers that move to the gulf rim as the RTHB go away away from the cold mountains.

10-28-20 Zeta, as a Cat 2,  crashed into SE Louisisana, Floriday Parishes late this afternoon and scooted quickly into Mississippi and Alabama, next stop Chesapeake Bay. Good riddance! 

The Soul of Money
October 29, 2020

I suggest that if you are willing to let go, let go of the chase to acquire or accumulate always more and let go of that way of perceiving the world, then you can take all that energy and attention and invest it in what you have. When you do that you will find unimagined treasures.
-Lynne Twist

No one ever trick or teats at our house so our treat will be carefully chilled tart red wine, a campfire and a few choice snacks. Y'all get out and enjoy the show, Don't forget the old people and the kids (darkness is a good time to sneak a few candies out of the kid's bag)

peace love possumhugs

BT