Backyard
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Fly
I found this dead fly inside the convoluted head of an organically-raised cauliflower from Salinas, CA, with its brain-like flowerets. Brassica! Diptera! The first day of spring!
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Cepaea nemoralis
Slicking up the back door. Faster than you think.
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Spider
We interrupt this progression of posts on the faraway sublime to bring you a bit of sublime closer at home. I was breaking down a head of broccoli and had gotten to the best part, the stem, which unfortunately was hollowed out by rot, when this one scootled across the chopping block for the cover…
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Rootmatting
I don’t know what it is, but it makes an absolute rug of roots, mostly horizontal. This is the kind of stuff that held the prairie in place.
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Spring Cleaning Snails
Three different specimens of our old friend Cepaea nemoralis.The snail’s “foot,” which gave rise to the name for this whole class of Molluscs, Gastropoda, which means simply stomach-foot (and is anatomically incorrect; the stomach is in the portion of the animal that is inside the shell).Just a size comparison with some other snails found during…
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Once More, With Feeling
Arbor Day draws to a close. This evening’s sunset lit up this backyard Magnolia out beyond the Back 40. It’s a late bloomer, shaded from much of the afternoon sun. Two fences away, snagged with a big plastic bag, and evidently uncared for, it beckons like a dream.
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Spring spider
Last week, on the first day of spring, a spider found itself in the tub.An American House Spider (I think), Parasteatoda tepidariorum. I got close with the camera and somehow brushed a line of silk, so that when I moved away, I inadvertently pulled the spider with me: it danced like a tiny puppet at…
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It’s the heat, stupid
People, politely called “climate change deniers,” who reject the basic rules of physics and chemistry parade their stupidity with a militance. In their willful ignorance, they like to parrot the line that the planet can’t be warming because we still have winter — even though winters are measurably warmer than they were just half a…
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Bleech!
The American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana), a.k.a. American Waterbug, and, incorrectly, as the Palmetto bug. The “American” is also a misnomer; they originated in Africa and been here since the 17th century. They are FREAKIN’ HUGE. (Sorry, my entomological sympathies are strained by the Blattodea.) 4cm or 1.5″ long. Distinguished from the smaller house invader commonly…
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Ailanthus Webworm
I was working my way up to taking a picture of the Ailanthus sapling that appeared this summer in a crack in the concrete in the Back 40. I was looking forward to a tree growing in Brooklyn, at least until the landlord saw it. But the Ailanthus Webworms got to it before I did.…
Backyard and Beyond 