The Politics of Rain

At this very nonce, the rain falls. Yesterday, the rain fell a lot. The CB got
3.5"s. That’s enough rain to hold us through July. But the rain falls still. Plus, the rain may fall for the rest of the week. Certainly, a few shall drown in flash floods. However, none of the drowning victims shall be Druids. So it’s OK if a few drown. Hey! It’s not like they didn’t get warned.

It’s the same with the right to bear arms. Many may feel like Der Bubberland is worse off now that we have plenty of right wing Catholics on the Supreme. Yes. Those Catholics are packed on the bench like sardines or maybe mackerels. Mercy! And furthermore, they are doing all sorts of typical Booblican favors for Big Business. That’s to be expected.

But look on the sunny side. Sometimes they make mistakes. After all, they are just lawyers, not infallible geniuses like pope what’s his name.

Yes. They made a mistake. Cause making sure everyone has guns is progressive. Why? Well. The ignorant and violent are the most likely to shoot each other and/or themselves. Which is actually good for civilization, but bad for big business.

Ha! They made a mistake.

Megachiloides Maybe

Also, at this very nonce several patches of Helianthus annuus (not shown)are in flower at the CB. The Silphiums (not shown)are too. Largish yellow bees have staked out every patch of these sunflowers defending same against all comers. Yes. These fierce bees scrap with everyone. Even with bumblebees, even with the little Mallaphora.

Naturally, Crumby has been mighty curious about these bees. But getting a good picture of the wing venation was not easy. No.

Yet these bees all seem to be males of the genus Megachiloides. Ma! I need a species key for these parts.

What’s Eating the Turk’s Cap?

Ma! This is major herbivory and these leaves look better than most. In other words, most of the leaves look worse. Crumby has looked and looked for the herbivores, even at night with a flashlight. But all Crumby has found are a few loopers or semi-loopers. Too few loopers or semi-loopers for this amount of herbivory.



OK. Some more facts of life. The plants in the deeper shade areas are worse afflicted than those that get more time with Ogma Sunface. So today Crumby dusted off some afflicted leaves and checked those under the microscope. All Crumby found was these eggs





and this 1mm diameter spider who was caught up in a bunch of eggs and could not shake loose. Don’t know whose eggs these are or what the spider may have to do with them.

The only other facts are, there appear to be sand grain sized crystals on the chewed up leaves and /or some white floccose material on the rims of some chewed out leaf holes. Crumby does not feel like the latter is fungus.

Crumby is fixing to figure all this out if the WG is willing. It’s hard enough to take pictures without having all the dang leaves chewed up in the picture, presenting an unsightly mess.

Oh! A quick perusal of the internet would lead one to believe that the Turk’s cap is almost pest free. Well. It obviously aint!

Synchlora sp. Under the Scope

This decorator looper was on Injun Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella). Hence, the attached plant parts are of that species. Crumby wished to see what the looper looked like under the scope. Don’t worry. It’s OK. Just playing possum.

Coelioxys texana maybe

Remember the little Megachiles nesting in the Lactuca? Well. I need to keep an eye on this gal because she is a cleptoparasite of the Megachiles. So far, I have not seen any of these Coelioxys messing around the Lactuca, only foraging on the Zexmenia. How interesting would it be to discover exactly how the Coelioxys get into the Lactuca. Apparently, all they have to do is lay an egg directly onto the flower petal that plugs up a cell. Then the baby cleptoparasite chews its way into the cell, eats the rightful occupant, wolfs up all the stored food, then later, when the bean bin is depleted, emerges as an adult. Mercy!


More Troubling Evidence

So what’s with all these Scottie generals. Huh-huh. It’s like, I’m Duncan McCloud of the Clan McCloud.

You know, there needs to be a rule, Keep your mouth shut, or lose your pension. That’s right. Shut it General Scottie or no more free greens privileges for you. Hoot man!

Huh-huh. Reckon how many generals Americano Land has pensioned off on the dole at this very nonce? Too many I betcha, and no damn good.


Off into the Wilderness, Again

Shocking as it may seem, Crumby actually left the CB for the second time this month, already. Good Goddess! As everyone knows, Crumby likes to stay home where he’s safe from interactions with Booblicans. Make no mistake, outstide the friendly confines of the CB, those Booblicans are the dominant life form in these parts. So it’s like if Crumby was still a Christian, he might reason, Walk not in the ways of the ungodly. Yet it’s the same difference now that Crumby practices Druidry. Only now it’s, Walk not in the ways of the ungoddessly.

Anyway, if Crumby could be guaranteed interesting encounters with a bug and a plant on every trip out into Booblican Austink, he might go out more often.

Interesting Bug - Dromogomphus spoilatus The common yet vulgar name for the genus is, spinyleg. Reckon how they came up with that?









Interesting Plant - Hexalectris grandiflora

Crumby has noticed that plenty of average photographers like to specify the gear they used to take this or that picture. Why should Crumby be any different? OK E330and Sigma Bugma on the bug. E 330 and Oly 35mm macro on the flower.

Anthophorinae Sound Asleep

This little bee, maybe Melissodes coreopsis, has latched on the Coreopsis stem. He’s a late and sound sleeper.

A Solstice is Upon Us

A tiny planet that some call Earth, hurtles and wobbles along through space and time. There it goes. Smart people recognize a pattern. Yes. Hold it, the smart holler, this tiny planet was in almost this exact same situation last year. Hey! We made it again.

Yes. We made it again. We made it again, despite more people and generally stupider people than ever before . Yes. Sadly, the people increase by leaps and bounds. But the stupidity increases super exponentially.

Like here’s how stupid the people are. Consider energy. Where is most of the handy energy stored? Did you guess, people fat? What about fatter babies? Did you take into account how much untapped energy fatter babies store these days?

Course not. You didn’t think of any of that.

Yet Druids are here to think for you, or actually, instead of you. Yes. What needs to happen, in terms of energy, is we need to tap that handiest of all renewable sources, people fat. Like how jolly would that be!

Let’s say a family of four with plenty of fat stored up waddles out to the garage. There they go waddling along. Once they get to the garage they load themselves into their Humvee Tactical Version. But when they go to start up the great vehicle, the great gas tank is empty. Boohoo! The fatties won’t get any exercise today, riding in their car.

Yet wait! It’s easy as hooking up a seat belt. All the fatties need do to is gas up with people fat. That’s right. The car is equipped with fat sucker tubes and an energy converter box that automatically converts people fat into Humvee fuel. Anon, the tank is full to sloshing and away they go.

Just another energy source in addition to all the others.

Spooky Adventures in Foreign Parts

That’s right. Crumby had to leave the CB to get these peektures. But Crumby didn’t go far. No.

How come Ehretia anacua aint everywhere? These parts suffered a brutal, protracted freeze last winter, yet this tree was unfazed and is now producing ample fruit. Go figure! Jeez Louise!

Crumby may never learn how to photograph trees! The top of the tree is cut off. And just look at all those dang wires. R. Crumb would be proud.






Here's some of the berries and leaves close up for any doubters or naysayers.








Meantime, it turns out that the Losh hate noisy cicadas as much as noisy crickets.

Podisus sp

Ma! Crumby wearies of sps. Too many sps in these parts. Crumby may be fixing to make up species names for the CB insects in these many instances where identification is impossible.

Anyhow, once again it is eat or be et time at the CB. And if anybody deserves to get et, besides the hoof rats, it’s the Chlosyne lacinia caterpillars.

Here is a Podisus soldier bug with a harpooned caterpillar. That particular caterpillar has already eaten up most of the annual sunflowers and was fixing to start on the verb virgin when the bug got the duda. Do you believe in an eye fer an eye, balance, equivalence, tit for tat, turn about, even Steven, six of one, half a dozen of another, the dialectic? Probably not.

Shot from a good ways off with a great many leaves in the way in the shade. 70-300 at 179, cropped.

Biggest Norte Americano Insect Ever

Here it is. Uniquely featured on RGVECB.

Ray was privileged to view this brutessa at work today. The body is like eight inches long. Thick as a pencil. And check out those colors. Ray shall be rich. Rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Many may notice some bodily fluid on one of the Celtis laevigata leaves depicted. That fluid could easily indicate that this huge insect lady became moist when Ray approached, a not uncommon response of the fairer sex to Ray's approach or presence.

LOSH

Many surmise that loggerhead shrikes eat crickets. But the truth is, loggerhead shrikes hate crickets. Here’s why.






Ma! None of us have had a decent night’s sleep for weeks. It’s these infernal crickets sounding off from dusk ‘til dawn. We hate them. They breed faster than we can tack them up. Mercy!

Well, let these serve as a warning to the remainder of those miserable crickets.

Rayetta’s Butterflies - Crimson Patch Before Summer Solstice

Speaking of second chances, I muffed the crimson patch pictures too, of the one that showed up at the CB over two years ago. Now, here’s another crimson patch, sticking to the shadows.

Vicissitude on the wing.

Hoof Rat

Ma! Now, instead of the hoof rats merely herding through the CB, we have a permanent resident. Probably we have at least two, although, out of sight out of mind. Here’s a rare shot of this one with its mouth empty.

Seriously, this needs to be canned dog food.

Second or Multiple Chances

A great thing about putting the WG in charge of your yard is second or multiple chances. Like forever, Crumby has been stuck with crappy peektures of the eastern amberwing. Just now, Praise the WG, Crumby deleted those crappy ones in favor of a newly acquired set. This is an example from the new set. You may wish to compare this one to the older and much inferior sample by typing in amberwing in the search block.

Basket-Flower

Today’s featured plant is basket-flower (Centaurea americana). This is another one of the thistles that barely hangs on at the CB. For one thing, it’s prickless, huh-huh, so the dang dear eat it. Ma! Crumby can scarcely believe there is no actual word or spell, prickless. Or prickleless either for that matter.

Centaurea, the genus, is mostly a bunch of introduced European weeds including the unusually nasty Centaurea melitensis which you may know as the Malta Star Thistle, a lovely plant.

This year at the CB we have two basket-flowers, up from zero last year. So this is another one we need to collect seed from. Trouble is, getting seed from this one is even harder that getting seed from Cirsium texanum.

Zelus renardii with Cuerna costalis Prey Item

The assassin bug depicted here has just about sucked the leaf hopper’s guts out. Well, how does Crumby know that. Easy, pretty soon the leafhopper got dropped. And the camera auto focus went for the Zelus’ abdomen. Mercy!




Here’s the slurped and dropped Cuerna costalis.

Crumby really, really, really needs a better camera that will auto focus and shoot in crappy light better. Dern it!

Corn Earworm (Helicoverpa zea)

Back before the climate in these parts degenerated to its present miserable condition we grew corn at the CB. Ray would go out and eat corn right off the stalk. Then he’d get projectile diarrhea (is there any other kind). That’s right. You are supposed to cook the corn a little to keep from getting the projectile diarrhea.

The other thing you need to do is check the ear for vermin as you shuck. Chances are, caterpillars may be on your cob. You may or may not wish to consume the caterpillars.

This moth has beautiful green eyes.

Ophaella communa Allegedly Eats Ragweed

Well. Crumby believes this may be Ophaella communa sitting on Aster subulatus. Well. Crumby knows it’s that particular aster, but he only believes in the beetle identification.

Ophaella communa is justifiably famous for eating ragweed. If that’s true, and ragweed is sufficient for the success of this beetle species in these parts, then there ought to be a trillion of them. That’s right. These parts feature plenty of ragweed, three species of which are plenty common. Plus, there may be some more, rarer ragweeds maybe for this beetle to eat.

Personally, Crumby feels like these ragweed eating beetles must have been slacking off all these years. Even at the CB, we have plenty of ragweed (Ambrosia curanamensis) and no sign yet of hungry beetles on any of it. Uh. You may know our ragweed as A. psilostachya. Nevertheless, now that we have identified Ophaella communa at the CB maybe, we eagerly anticipate watching it wolf up a ragweed or two.

Addendum: Ray tells Crumby that he found a beetle identical to this one in the dog water dish at work. So there are at least two of them, neither espied on their ragweed host. What if, they have found something better to eat than Ambrosia?

Stewardship

Stewardship can mean a great many contrary things to a variety of knot heads. For example, in the Republico duh Tejas, a landowner that blocks up the creek with used up appliances and auto parts may be a good steward or a bad steward. It just depends. Most would say, however, that since the steward we are discussing is a steward on his, her or its own property, that steward is doing good by doing whatever that duda does do. Furthermore, it’s nobodies’ business, but that dudas.

Well. Course stewardship is different for Druids. That’s why we have decided to make sure the little Megachiles have safe housing. That’s right. More and more holes have appeared in the Lactuca stems. Now there are about six holes.

Curiously, there is no pattern to the holes in terms of direction. They face every which a way. For example, this one faces southeast. But all that aside, we need to make sure that nothing happens to the Lactuca ludoviciana until after the baby bees matriculate. Now that’s Druid stewardship.

OOPS my bug is misidentified Glyptina cyanipennis (Crotch) Achtung! Contains Low Humor

The beetle depicted is Asphaera lustrans, not Glyptina cyanipennis (Crotch). Oh my goodness. The below is fairly embarrassing, given the misidentification. Crumby should probably delete it. But he won't.

Correct. The following has a bunch of vulgarity that most shall find annoying.

What could be more fun than nature? I mean, really. Nature is swell because of Her almost infinite capacity for surprise, delight or amusement. But then, pile on the scientific nomenclature. Yes, with the naming conventions or guidelines piled on top of nature, you get the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the cat’s meow, the piece de resistance, the lace petticoat, the rhinestone prophylactic, etc.

This is not a very good picture. But it’s good enough to allow for an identification of the leaf beetle to species. And of course the species name includes p-e-n-n-i-s. Now normally, in fact practically never, does Crumby include the authority for the scientific name. It’s too much trouble. However, in this case, Crumby is making an exception. Huh-huh.

Way to go Dr. Crotch! Unfortunately, Dr. Crotch was struck down by TB while still in his prime.

Crumby’s Miscellaneous Adventure

Off I headed to Llano County. Many perils did I pass along the way. There were llamas. There were blancos. There was this, that or the other. Yet at last I finally arrived at my destination. Merciful Goddess, thank you for sparing me. The worst I got out of the perilous journey was a delicious fountain RC. Generally speaking, the Llanites are a bunch of ignoramuses. But how ignorant can they be when they vend fountain RCs. Praise the WG for fountain RC.

But religious affiliations aside, suddenly the sky darkened. Crumby found himself, chock full of RC, spared from certain death, yet in possession of a great red tube under fairly dark skies with only moderate pollution. As the night wore on, two entirely new, for Crumby, heavenly phenomena revealed themselves. These twain are the Leo Triplet and the Western Veil Nebula. Heretofore, at the CB, Crumby had never espied the third component of the Leo Triplet. Espying only twain of a triplet is a certain letdown, misery, trouble, failure, demon affliction, curse, etc. But now, Crumby has espied the triplet. So, once again, the universe is in balance. Fear not, stupidos!

The only part of the Veil Nebula Crumby could actually espy was the western part around that bright star, what’s its name. An OIII filter was essential.

Then, back home at the CB, Crumby found another lady bug kind or type today. This one is super little, like 3mm. What a gosh dang runt! Scymnus species maybe.

The Great Purple Hairstreak

At the CB we have trashed more pictures of great purple hairstreaks than anyone except maybe the WG can imagine. Many are called, many are culled. Huh-huh. Yes. Many are culled.

You know, Crumby may be getting better at satire. But never mind that.

Here is yet another picture of the great purple hairstreak on Polytaenia. Bluebonnets anyone?

More Melissodes Maniacs

Finally, Ray found a couple of dead bees today. Yes. It was incredibly hot and stupid today so the dead bees probably had heart attacks.

Dead bees are liable to get their pictures took. Check out the Melissodes wing venation.

Outsmarting Sharpshooters

The deal with sharpshooters is, you need to flush them out in the open. Typically however, they are adept at hiding on the other side of the stem on which they are standing or hanging. And the truth is, an average amateur entomologist can wear his or her, duda self out chasing a sharpshooter around a stem. That’s because the entomologist must move a great distance while the sharpshooter only has to move a few mms.

Crumby was worn out from playing ring around the rosy with this particular sharpshooter. Dern! OK. Let me catch my breath. Look at that! I have beaten a trail plumb around this goldenrod, and still no picture. Outsmarted by a homop!

Yet then the WG spoke to Crumby out of thin air. Crumby, you nincompoop, hold your camera in one hand and simultaneously use your other hand to spook the sharpshooter out into the open.

No idea about the species or even the genera.

Ray Figures Stuff Out at Work

There I was at work. Praise the Goddess, we all got off yesterday for Codger Day, but today was back to the old grind, the old rat race, the old treadmill, the old 9 to 5, the old class privilege, where the bosses exploit the miserable, downtrodden, sweaty proles. Mercy!

There I was at work. I was barely under a tree, barely taking advantage of the scant shade cast by that forlorn Taxodium. The heat was bad, but the stupidity was worse. Good Goddess! Send me a distraction.

The blessed WG answered my forlorn yet miserable cry almost immediately. Ray! Check out those bees. Those bees are going crazy.

Whoa! Sho nuff. A great many bees that nest in holes in the ground near my preferred work area were going nuts. I watched them for hours.

Mercy! How long did it take Ray to figure out what was happening? Easy that, several hours. That’s because Ray had to work and watch the bees, simultaneously.

OK. For whatever reason these digger bees decided the time was right to stage a major event. Like actually, the male digger bees decided it was time to gang rape the females. Trouble is, the females are bigger than the males. Plus, the females can sting.

Near as I can figure out, the females are going about their business of providing pollen to the underground babies while the males are fixing to waylay the hard-working females. Opportunities arise when the females land near the hole and are fixing to go in. That’s when the males jump them. But more often than not, the female gets away leaving behind a boiling ball of homos. Goodness!

Here is a female entering a hole, totally unmolested. The green stuff is a fungicide spray. The female is identifiable due to all the pollen on her leg hairs. Shave those legs, baby!