Bugs Versus Buggerers

In his dotage, all Crumby really wants to do is visit with the CB bugs in peace. Yet if Crumby loses focus and chances upon any news, no matter what the media, chances are that news item shall feature nasty buggerers. Mercy!

With all this buggering going on, Crumby and Ray decided to discuss their own personal,getting buggered as children experiences. Alas, though Crumby and Ray were both generally abused as children, neither one of them got buggered so far as they can remember.

Now let’s recall. Crumby was reared by Christians and Ray was reared first by moles, and later by the Druids at the famous Druid college and orphanage, The Tabby Lab. Both these oppressed little boys were irregularly beaten, tortured and forced to work long hours under inhumane conditions. But they never got buggered. So that’s good, probably.

OK. Crumby wearies of considering the lifestyles of the Catholic clergy and Scout Masters. Instead, consider the insects.

Yes. Crumby is going along when he chances to espy a blossom of Lindheimera texana all covered in vermin. Now, everyone knows that many a bug considers a Lindheimera petal or ray flower as one of the tastiest of all morsels. So naturally, Crumby figured that the little bugs were fixing to eat up all the petals or actually ray flowers.

Crumby rushed off to fetch a camera. But by the time Crumby got back with the camera, most of the tiny bugs had hooked it. And the ones that remained were just sitting around and not fixing to eat the petals. Crumby took one picture.

This is the picture Crumby took. You may not believe it, but those four tiny bugs, avearaging about one mm from snout to anus, (Crumby hopes no one gets the wrong impression from his use of the word, anus), are probably micro-wasps of the Superfamily Chalcidoidea. Yet to get any better pictures, Crumby must actually capture some of these lilliputian vermin and take their picture under the microscope. That may or may not happen, ever.

Euphorbia spathulata and interesting Hemip

Crumby is furious because he can’t identify this bug to family. Check out the twain distal antenna segments.

Hold it! Crumby just figured it out. It’s Family Coreidae, the euphorbia bug, Chariesterus antennator. There sure do seem to be plenty of bugs or hemips associated with various euphorbs. Mercy!

Stupid Plant Tricks

Here a person may see Carex leavenworthii growing up through a chair. If Carex leavenworthii had bracts below the infloresences it would not be capable of this particular trick.




Here a person may see one of the three paintbrushes that have come up at the CB this year. Ray puts out seed. A few come up. The deer devour the few.

So this year, since there is plenty of Galium aparine, Ray pulls up the Galium, crushes the Galium to make it stink, then festoons the stinky Galium around the paintbrush. We shall espy if the stinky Galium keeps the deer away from our dern paintbrush, maybe.

English holly (Ilex aquifolium) at the CB

Apparently we have two, plus one offspring or offshoot. Crumby is pretty sure they are actually Ilex aquifolium as opposed to a cultivar, freak of nature, hybrid or Ilex opaca.

The only attempt at reproduction at the CB is probably a shoot of a root that is now maybe three years old. It (the shoot of the root) has different leaves than the fruit and flower bearing adults. Shown here is a leaf off the offspring. It’s on the right and is shockingly different than the regular leaves. Yes. Maybe those five spiny tips keep herbivores at bay when the shoot is little. Then, once it matures, it only produces the solitary spiny tip at the distal end of the leaf. But who really knows?

Apparently, Ilex aquifolium is invasive in the northwest and northeast of Norte Americano. Here though, the climate is probably too hot, and the extreme heat sterilizes the fruit or something. In any event, something is terribly wrong in these parts. Terribly wrong because there are no babies produced in these parts.

This honey bee loves the flowers.

Rapistrum rugosum, bastard mustard, kick ass!!!!

Many may know that my bosom companion, Ray, was actually named for the bastard mustard, Rapistrum rugosum. Thus, Ray Pistrum. So was Ray’s notorious sister, Rayetta.

All righty then, today at the CB we are celebrating the introduced Eurasian weed, Rapistrum rugosum, from which many of us got our Druid names. Praise the Goddess from whom all blessings flow!

OK. Let the celebration commence et vous. Please note. All these pictures are products of the E330 and old 14-54, a fairly versatile lens.

Here we are going along. Look! A tousand or maybe two tousand Rapistrum as far as the eye can see, nearly.







Then here are a great many more.











Here’s a white-crowned sparrow in a tree above the multifluous Rapistrum.











Here’s the Rapistrum, totally dominating a berm.






Here’s a close up of Rapistrum rugosum.










Here’s a fly on the Rapistrum. But don’t let a mere fly mess you up. Yesterday, Crumby counted 12 red admirals on about 1/10th acre of Rapistrum. Praise Cerridwen!

Here’s a short poem that may be sung to the tune of, San Francisco, open your golden gates!

Rapistrum, open your golden petals
all of the nasty bugs want to tongue you.

Rapistrum your such a nice Eurasian weed
compared to the Malta star thistle underneath you.

Uh, Rapistrum, golden as the sunset
where in the valley are you not at.

Muscari racemosa

Deer (Odocoileus virginiana) play a big part in vegetation management at the CB. Those deer generally eat all the plants Crumby wants, and leave the plants Crumby cares not for, entirely alone. However, there is in life as we know it, always room for ambiguity. Consider Muscari racemosa. It is a rather pretty, introduced Eurasian weed. Yet the deer eat it anyway. This picture is the second bunch of flowers this Muscari racemosa has produced. The deer ate the first bunch.

Obviously, honey bees go to the flowers. Yet also a really tiny, under 5mm, native bee, an Osmia sp., also goes to the flowers. See. Room for ambiguity. Uh. Obviously, the little Osmia is not on the flowers when this picture was taken. It does however, get on the flowers. Trust Crumby.

Another CB Homop (Cuerna sp.)

Recall the struggle for equal rights the homops have waged, only to be denied those miserable same rights by the majority hemips. These days the poor homops go entirely unrecognized in most places. That’s why the contrarian CB continues to recognize the poor homops. Surely, their day shall come. Just like Joseph’s day came, maybe.

Hmm. Maybe, considering the locale of the CB in the Republico duh Booblico, Crumby should explain the joke. As you may know, the Homoptera once had their own Order. Lately, the old Order Homoptera has been subsumed into Hemiptera. Thus, the long struggle between homops and hemips, which coincidentally sounds lots like homos and he men.

Joseph is of course the mythological owner of the coat of many colors, very like the coat of the Cuerna sp. included above.

Whut the heck!

This is apparently a new weed for the CB. Near as Crumby can figure, it is Cardamine pensylvanica. Is Cardamine pensylvanica even in the Travis County flora?

Holy Animals! Crumby just figured out how the Cardamine pensylvanica came to the CB. Ha! It hitched a ride in a nursery pot. That's it. That particular nursery has plenty of Cardamine, possibly, so the Cardamine from that nursery just expanded its range to the CB. Alas, it won't survive the next rainless period, betcha.

Vireo griseus

White-eyed vireos nest across the street in the drainage. Drainage, dear boy, drainage. But this time of year this one forages at the CB. Here today, gone tomorrow. Never to be seen again, until next spring.

These Dern Leps

Moth and Butterfly.
Same dern color. Same dern tree.

More Galaxies Visible from Planet Earth (Are we all gonna die?)

Ripped off by fate, Crumby had to stay at the CB during the last dark of Moon. What a dern deal this is? No dark skies, fer me. That’s what Crumby thought.

So Sunday night, fixing to make the best of his sad situation, Crumby set up the Great Red Tube in the back yard even though high clouds were in evidence at Ogma’s setting. Those high clouds can be hard to see at night. But they can work plenty of near invisible mischief where the average amateur astronomer is concerned. Yes. Crumby could just espy some cloudy wispiness occluding the high heavens.

Later though, those clouds must have gone off somewhere else because once Crumby got set up on Leo, he espied the elusive M95 fairly easily. Well, easier than a needle in a haystack.

The trouble with M95 under the CB urban skies is that 40x does not really cut it. All Crumby can espy at 40x is that something looks odd. Like maybe there is a galactic oddity at work as opposed to mere tiny stellar points. At 60x, M95 starts to look galactic. But it takes like 100x to see M95 at the same honkingness that you can see all the other nearby brighter galaxies at 40x.

Pleased with himself for espying M95, Crumby decided to check out some Virgo galaxies. Yikes! M61 proved to be pretty dang tough. Yet M49 was easy. Hey! How about NGC 4526 located in the short leg of a nearby starry triangle. That one ought to be easy to locate, if not espy.

By then it was 2:30 AM and the cool night air was afflicting Crumby, causing his asthma to act up. Crumby was already wheezing. This shall be the last galaxy for this night.

Yes. NGC 4526 is easy even at 40x. Easy to find, easy to espy.

Yes. We are all gonna die!

Today’s Most Interesting Insect (Oncometopia clarior)

Well, maybe not the most interesting. But this one is the most interesting insect Crumby was able to get a picture of. Other insects may have been slightly more interesting than this one. But all of those others eluded the camera.

Buttercup and Hoover Fly

Many moons ago Crumby rescued the ancestor of this buttercup from certain doom in Jackson County. That’s right. Crumby dug the ancestor up and moved it to the CB. Now, after a fall and winter of plentiful rain, these buttercups, the offspring of the original colonist, are flourishing. There are now, more than ever of these particular buttercups.

Here’s a Hoover fly on one of the many naturalized buttercups.

Crumby’s Commentary on “Rural exertion for an urban reward”

Egad! Crumby swears to the Goddess. The Tejano dumbshits are just fucking with me.

Hey! Crumby thought for a nanosecond, I should write a letter to the editor of the neo-Falangist Austin American Statesman newspaper.

But then Crumby calmed down. Fuckers! It’s just another routine assault on decency and problem solving.

OK. For about the last hundred years the federal government has been subsidizing welfare ranchers in the Republico duh Booblico for the clearing of the brush. Which means, the average Americano gets to pay out for brush control on the average republico booblico ranchette every 20 years. But because there are plenty of ranchettes, the average dumbass taxpayer gets to pay out taxes for brush control on all the rachettes collectively over the course of that dudas miserable proletarian tax paying lifetime, instead of just for the 20 year discrete event on one ranchette that might seem semi-fair.

So! The various hoards of gentry type welfare ranchers get brush control subsidized by the tax payers, you and me. Yes. The feds clear brush at the taxpayer’s expense on the welfare ranches and have been doing this activity all over the state for about 100 years. But now, what’s the justification for my subsidizing of the millionaire Tejano ranchette way of life. Remember, Crumby has been subsidizing their sorry asses his whole working life (52 years). But now, alas and alack, the ranchette free riders are supposedly supplying Crumby with cool water in payment for their stinking debt.

Cool water. If only Crumby had known. All the Tejano ranchers ever wanted from brush control was to provide the thirsty urban proletariat with water. Goodness!

Oh My Goddess! Crumby always thought they were just exploiting cheap Mexican labor and raping the environment for short term profit. Now Crumby knows the truth. And Crumby feels real bad. Huh-huh!

Spring has Sprung

The peach tree is blooming. Alas. So are the plums. Alas. Yet there are hardly any pollinators about. Man! Why the heck go to the trouble of producing mass quantities of flowers when there are no pollinators? Seems like bad timing to Crumby.

There may be a few honey bees around, but nowhere near enough to deal with the sudden profusion of flowers. Later, there will be plenty of honey bees, but no flowers. The poor little bees shall wind up visiting Mountain Dew cans in the garbage. Mercy!

Yes. Well maybe if this flower can hang on until tomorrow, a nice sunny day shall bring a bee or some other potential pollinator. But another thing Crumby has already noticed is that the predators are at way too high a density. Those predators generally track prey density here at the CB and don’t appear in relatively big bunches until later. Mercy! At this very nonce there are more assassin bugs on the plum tree than Hoover flies.

A New Weed for the CB

Years ago, Ray attempted to introduce a fumitory to the CB. Now that bold yet crazy effort has borne fruit, or at least, flowers. Yes. We now have for the nonce, a Corydalis sp. at the CB. Here is a peekture. There are maybe five total plants. Let’s see if the deer eat them up.

OK. The only citation for a fumitory in this venue is April 2, 2008 under the post, Crumby and a Pack Mule something or other. Apparently, on that date, April 2, Crumby cleaned the seed that has only now come up. That’s nearly two years ago. Mercy! Remarkable!

The Subject Frostweed Sprouts Anew, Alas

This could get interesting. Here we see the subject frostweed sprouted anew. Yet another frost or even a hard freeze is quite likely for these parts. Will the frostweed extrude ribbons of ice even after it has sprouted anew?

Yes. Already this subject frostweed may hold the documented record for number of times it has extruded ice ribbons (8 maybe 9) in a single cool season. Well, zippity-do-dah!

Crumby is Pretty Dang Upset

Seriously. A Druid Ovate needs to be able to predict if a camera company is fucking with him. You’d think!

It all goes back to, and we have been over this time and again, that it’s super hard to predict stuff on an individual level where shit really matters. For example, did you know or like any of the Haitian earthquake casualties? Not Crumby. Crumby didn’t know or like a single one of them, except maybe in theory. Yet Crumby could have easily predicted that catastrophic earthquake if he had been the least bit interested in Haitian earthquake theosophy. But Crumby can’t predict whether a shitty camera company is fixing to make more dslrs for him, or for his personal use or hobby.

Yes. Ovation is an aggravating pastime or profession. Witness! Ovation is swell for the masses who may, as a result of an important ovation, move to high ground, or run out in the yard just in the nick of time. Yes. The faithful may be saved. Those no count beneficiaries of ovations get to skate along, surviving. Oh yes. The ovate helps them. But do they help the ovate? Course not. They could care less.

It’s like this. Let’s assume that Crumby predicted, five years in advance, that the entire Olympus camera manufacturing capacity would be destroyed by either a tsunami or pilotless Americano imperialist wedgie bombers. So Olympus takes heed. What do they do? Well, they move all their shitty factories to the Republico duh Booblico where all their factory like shit is unlikely to be bombed into the Stone Age or nukelured. Plus Olympus gets some gigantic tax breaks, free water, free electricity, free labor and tort reform. In other words, they make do in a capitalist paradise.

Yes. Crumby saves their sorry asses. But what thanks does Crumby get? Well. None. Instead of thanks, Crumby gets a 40 megapixel camera. Plus, the camera Crumby receives as his free gift has such a tiny sensor that it can only operate within a 50 mile range of Ogma Sunface. That’s how sunny the shitty camera's environment needs to be so the camera can take a picture. So Crumby is basically fucked when it comes to home and yard photography. Crumby would need a space ship, not included with his new camera, for his shitty Japanese camera to work at all. Jeez Louise!

Producing Nature Documentaries at Home

Crumby was so excited. Where am I? Then Crumby remembered. He was in a tent, camped out in the Mexican wilderness with only bird watchers for company.

I need to arise. That’s right. Here now, I shall arise at this very nonce. Then I shall put on some more clothes. Then I shall go on out and pee. Then I shall make some coffee. Then, after I drink my coffee I shall head on out before anyone else is even awake. Ha! I shall espy the elusive juju bwana bird while the flat chested snooze on.

Off Crumby went. Yes. Feckless Ogma had not yet cleared the horizon when Crumby set out in search of the juju bwana bird. All day long Crumby searched for the juju bwana. Mile after mile Crumby trod from the lowest valley to the highest peak. No juju bwana bird.

At last, as feckess Ogma fixed to set, Crumby journeyed along despondently and wearily back to camp. What did you get Crumby? Everyone wanted to know.

No juju bwana. Waaaah! I looked high and low but no juju bwana.

You should have stayed here Crumby. A pair of juju bwanas was here around the camp all day. Everyone got good looks at those juju bwanas.

Yes. In the example above Crumby imparts a typically anecdotal account of what can easily happen to travelers in foreign parts. Unfamiliar with the habitat, your typical traveler may waste plenty of time on fruitless misadventure seeking this or that in the wrong spot. Better to just stay in camp. Or better yet, stay home.

That’s right. Especially, old people, therefore, should do nature at home right in their own back yards. That’s because old people are at a serious disadvantage, traveling about. Those elderly people are probably unfamiliar with the habitat, or if they knew the habitat once, they have forgotten most of its characteristics. Plus, the elderly are way more susceptible to predation. Like everyone knows that predators go for the old and feeble first. Like old people in the tropics should definitely watch out for monkeys. And what about medicine? Old people can easily run out of medicine.

Yet nature study at home can be entirely or almost entirely safe and productive. First though, you need to provide a little something natural to attract more nature, like some decent habitat. A lawn full of Eurasian weeds probably sucks as habitat. But there you go

Or maybe not. This monk parakeet likes lawns full of Eurasian weeds just fine. This parakeet is dining on last years Siberian elm seeds plus shepherd’s purse seeds and no telling what else over on a grassy sward that abuts the Burger Center parking lot. So maybe you don’t need to do anything to your shitty yard to attract animals and birds. Some of them are bound to like anything and therefore be attracted.

What if you want to take pictures of all the fauna that shows up? Like say a wild monkey shows up. Wouldn’t you want to take its picture? Yep. Sure you would.

But what kind of camera would you need to take a picture of a tiny wild monkey brachiating in your Chinaberry. Well. You would need a dslr type camera with a long telephoto lens to take a picture of that dern monkey. And not just any dslr camera either. No. You would need a name brand dslr camera; a Canon or a Nikon.

That’s where Crumby screwed up. Crumby purchased a dslr to take pictures of monkeys with. But Crumby purchased an off brand of dslr. Crumby wanted to save a little money. Now, however, Crumby’s brand of dslr is fixing to go belly up. That’s right. The Olympus bunch is fixing to quit making any more dslrs. And now, the only long telephoto lenses that fit the Olympus dslrs have already been discontinued. So how is Crumby fixing to get any decent pictures of that monkey, on-going?