Rain at last

It is raining this morning for the first time in over two weeks.  It is slow and steady and promised for the next three days. As it hits our newly painted deck it makes big bubbles to float in the puddles.  I will pursue indoor things today or maybe just live in the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," a charming book that makes me miss England.

Walking stick photo published

I'm a regular!  My second photo has been published in the New River Valley Current and they printed it BIG.  It was the walking stick photo from a couple of blogs ago.  I bought myself a new camera this week so I'll have to try it out in hopes of getting more pics published.

Acorn symphony

Acorn symphony
Living in a city, away from a natural forest, it is easy to forget seasonal sounds made among densely growing trees.  It certainly was that way for me. In Germany, I lived surrounded by large pine trees mixed with an occasional deciduous and even an acorn-dropping oak. The pines frequently bombarded the red tile roof of my house with cones, especially when coaxed by wind. Acorns fell mostly unheeded because I was gone so much.  In Blacksburg's Preston Forest, acres of trees surround the house.  When we first arrived here in March of this year, leaves were uppermost in my mind--trillions of them--so when feeling the onset of our first Fall here, leaves again factored into my thinking.  Acorns were not on my radar until I was outside recently for a long period of time messing with mulch. Suddenly, all around me I heard thunk and plop noises and felt as though someone unseen was hurling stones at me. Then it happened. A fat green acorn plopped to the ground in front of me and another and another. I quickly realized nature was the pitcher and acorns her object of choice.  The hair on my arm went back down as I looked around and realized acorns come in several different shapes and sizes--at least ten different kinds of oak trees each with a slightly different acorn, according to my field guide to trees.  A cursory inspection of the acorns around me revealed at least 4-5 kinds of oak trees grow on our land.  Deer and squirrel love this fall delight.  The roof bangs and pops with the impact of falling acorns. Our deck was covered with acorn bits one morning.  Had the squirrels thrown the acorns to the deck and then feasted on them or had they munched them high in the branches overhead and let the crumbs fall for me to sweep? The deer must be satisfied with this extra taste, too, because they haven't nibbled on my flowers and bushes lately.  Maybe I should wish for acorn harvest all year long.

Walking stick visitor

Some visitors come to talk, some to eat, some just come to Preston Forest  to hang around, as was the case this week with a large and strange bug perched by Bill's workshop door.  "Get your camera!  You gotta see this thing!" said Bill.  A good carpenter always measures so he came to the photo shoot with tape in hand to show just how big this dude was.  For 10 minutes we closely examined him from inches away and he never so much as twitched.  His quarter-inch, squid-looking face was armed with antennae about three inches long; his jointed legs bent at strong angles. A search of walking sticks on the web revealed his Borneo cousins can grow to 13 inches long so ours proved to be a lightweight in the world of phasmida. Most fascinating detail--females don't need the males to reproduce so totally female colonies are sometimes found.  As we were checking him out so closely it would have been nice to know he (she?) is capable of shooting poison that causes blindness in his enemies!

Caterpillar photo gets published

I sent the caterpillar photo seen in my last post to the New River Valley Current (newspaper magazine) and today they published it.  How cool is that?  They have a page of reader-submitted photos.  Neat to see my stuff printed like that so I'll have to do more of it.

Finally writing from Blacksburg

March 8 was our first day in our new home. I have thought many times that I should post something because there were certainly things to write about. We are now in our seventh month in the forest. We survived the huge effort of moving in, picking up cars, unpacking (most) things, getting rid of many things and being reminded of how many bugs there are in an American forest--at least in this one! I lived on the edge of a huge forest in Germany and could walk for hours in it without being bothered by bugs. Here, I think mosquitoes would fly through three states for the joy of attacking even two inches of my exposed flesh. Go outside to work in the garden, walk to the mailbox, walk in the neighborhood--swarms of gnats gather around our heads, get in our eyes.

As lovely as the location and house are, the bugs have frustrated us so much we thought we couldn't live here. Trust me, 18 itching mosquito bites from knees to feet will keep you from sleeping! It is now September and the critter concentration seems a bit lower. By now I have a huge selection of bug bite prevention and/or treatment. Off, Cutter, Skin so Soft, organic all-natural for the preventing (none of them 100%). Afterbite (smells strongly of ammonia), anti-itch creams and Zyrtex antihistamine for the dealing with. The creams seem the best. The Zyrtex wired me to the point nothing would make me sleep that night. Not a good thing considering I had a 40-minute drive the next morning to an art class. A neighbor suggested I wear a big straw hat because the gnats won't go under the brim. Mostly true, I found. I'm not a pretty sight--tall socks, long pants, long sleeves, gloves, layers of spray and giant hat--sometimes with a dryer sheet tucked into the band for extra measure, another bit of advice. Add to that misery, unusually high heat and humidity and the cool fresh air of Germany beckons to us daily. Sigh.

Hmm, I forgot to mention the "nasty quadrupeds" otherwise known as deer. While bugs are eating me, deer are eating my plants. Is there no end to all this munching?

There are many good things to write about but I thought I'd get the gripes out of the way first. Happy things in the next post.

Photos with this post: Four-inch lunar moth on the wall of our garage. Caterpillar (soon to be black swallowtail butterfly) on a parsley plant on my deck. Critters that bring me joy, not bites!