Rayetta's Mudding Station

All righty.   Many may have old dog food dishes lying around collecting water for the mosquitoes to breed in.  But you may wish to put that old dog food dish to a better or at least different use.  Here's what you can do.  Make a butterfly mudding station for your thirsty butterflies.

Fill your old dog dish with sand.   Put in some water.  Optionally, you may add some decorative rocks for the butterflies to stand on, so they won't get their nasty little feet wet or dirty up the water with their nasty little feet.  Course, they may never actually stand on the decorative rocks.  That's why the decorative rocks are optional.

To actually attract the butterflies, you may wish to add something to the water.  For example, Ray or Crumby, whoever changes out the hummingbird feeders, now pours the old hummingbird feeder food into the mudding station.  Or, you may wish to pee into the mudding station.  Many butterflies like human pee.

Black-eyed Susan Takes Fertility Drug

It's true.  Crumby keeps one eye peeled for freak show oddities.  Yes.  Crumby enjoys a good look at a sport now and then.  This particular black-eyed Susan is a personal record for Crumby.  Goodness sakes alive! 

Ray Invents New Banana Feeder

It takes bananas to make bananas.  Or so they say. 

Thus, Ray figured that if you want to attract more bananas to your banana feeder, you need a better feeder.  A feeder that the various mammals or varmints may not so easily grab the bananas out of.  We shall see about that, anon. 

All kidding aside, this banana feeder has already attracted an emperor, about a nanosecond after Ray hung it.  Alas, the emperor is not shown.  That's a honey bee shown.

Scissortail Lands at CB

OK!  For the first time that anybody has noticed, a scissortail flycatcher has actually taken up flycatching over the CB airspace.  Plus, it has actually landed.  That's because the CB east pasture is a meadow this season and full of flying insects.  Why do they call the scissortail a flycatcher?  Easy that.
 

Yet the scissortail flycatcher is also famous as the State Bird of Okrahoma.   But few know the meaning of the word, Okrahoma. Much less the ancient language or tongue that first formulated Okrahoma as a regular word of that particular tongue or lingo. Turns out though, Okrahoma is a word first employed by the Nehi Indians to describe themselves.  The meaning is maybe "the men who are like okra".   Although , Okrahoma could also mean, maybe, "the men who like okra, or "the men who eat okra."  Or, "the men who are consumed by okra."  Or, "the men who could not live without okra."

Yes.  Apparently the Nehi Indians featured the same difference with okra as did the normal Indians with bison. 

OK!  If you click to maximize the image above, there is a pretty good look at a scissortail anus.

Zooms for Bigger Butterflies

This time it's the Olympus 70-300, another close focusing and long zoom.  Works great when a super nova has just gone off as seen here.

Hey butterfly!  Look out.  A supernova has just gone off.

Zooms for Bigger Butterflies

Bigger butterflies may be photographed with zoom lenses.  Ideally, the zoom employed should be long focal length and fairly close focusing.  There are many such lenses available.  Some are cheap. One of these lenses is the Canon EF-S 55-250.  Crumby picked up his at Target for $160.00 new.  That's cheap all righty then. 

But you get what you pay for, don't we?.  Let's see.  Maybe you paid $180 for the lens we are now discussing.  Or even more.  Or even less.  But we all got what we paid for.  Or did we.  Maybe your lens never arrived by delivery truck after you payed for it.  So sadly, you didn't get what you paid for.
Here is a sample photograph, perhaps indicating how this particular lens can do with bigger butterflies.

Praise the WG with Great Praise

Well.  Thanks be to the WG, probably, Crumby was wrong in an environmental prognostication.  You may see that Crumby figured it would not rain on these parts until maybe October, thus killing the growing season.  Yet the WG has shown mercy.  The rains have fallen, thus saving many from death by dehydration.  So praise the WG even though She has made the Crumby Ovate look like a fool or false prophet.  Mercy!

His noggin freed up from fretting over the rain situation, Crumby decided he could stand some current event type news. For Heaven's sake, the story that caught Crumby's attention is Mitt the bully. 

Duh!   Mitt the bully started Crumby to thinking, like, what sort of Americano that was fixing to vote for Mitt, would be dissuaded from voting for Mitt, by Mitt's propensity for bullying the weak, helpless or outnumbered?  Easy that, none.  Crumby feels like not one single Americano that was fixing to vote for Mitt would be put off by the bully stories.  The fact is, bully stories should help Mitt a lot with the target Americano voter or electorate.  Makes him look tough or devil-may-care; qualities highly valued by the feeling driven.

Mercy Me Oh My At Last

As everyone who cares, knows, Stinky Valley has been suffering from rainlessness since the first week of March, or thereabouts.  Last night,  Crumby went to bed nervous, as he is wont to do after rainless days and rainless nights.  It was like weird though because a supposedly bright moon was supposed to be a big deal last night.  However, that particular bright moon was obscured by clouds.  So it wasn't that bright. 

Then Crumby eventually goes to bed anyway, made weary by nervousness.  But before Crumby nods off, he asks the WG to spare all the herbs from dying of thirst before they can produce viable seed.

Please WG.  Spare the Bifora.  Spare the lemon horse mint.  Spare the ironweed. Spare the black-eyed Susans.  Etc.  However, if you  need to cull this or that, go ahead and cull the dang speargrass. 

Then Crumby finally nodded his noggin.  Yet lo and behold, anticipated by few, if any, the rains came.  Yes.  The CB was visited by thunderstorms in the middle of the night.  Plus, the sprinkles fall yet, even after cruel Ogma's rising.  Surely, withal, this rain shall assuage the thirst of the deserving.  They shall not wither.  They shall set fertile seed. 

Course, good and evil tend to balance one another.  Although, in these parts, good has plenty of catching up to do.  Anyway, the rain is very good.  But mercy?  Que paso el gato?  Sadly, this is the cat's time to do mass murder.  But he can't.  Due to the sprinkles.

Stinky Valley Environmental News

Following a wet winter, the rains have ceased this spring.  That's right.  Stinky Valley has received no spring rain.  Nada.  So when you visitors and immigrants or immigrunts from foreign parts plan  a Stinky Valley trip, we would appreciate if you'd bring us along a little water.  Even if it's just a Mason jar full, that would be better than nothing, by a long shot.

Yes.  Here's what you should do if you want to help save the faltering environment in these parts.  (Remember, the shopping will continue to be great for many years to come. if we have some cool, clear water).  Yepper!  Just fill up whatever container is handy, the more volume the better, and tote it along when you come to visit or inhabit.  Then, when you arrive at Stinky Valley, your water deposit destination, pour that water out on a deserving perennial.  Can't identify a deserving perennial by yourself?  Course you can't.  Well.  That's OK.  Just pour it out on any bare dirt or plant that/s handy. 

The Bosom Brotherhood figures that if enough of you visitors, primarily shoppers to the Stinky Valley strip malls, brought water, we could easily maintain our vegetation for another season or two.  Mercy!  Please bring us a little H2O.  Thanks in advance from the Bosom Brotherhood, RGVECB.

Arabis petiolaris

Ray and his Bosom Brother, Crumby, have always wanted to have some Arabis petiolaris at the CB.  So for many moons, every time a member of the Brotherhood espied some Arabis with fruit,he collected a little. Then, they would bring the fruits back to the CB and sow the mustard seed on the site of the old septic field.  Why there?  Easy that, the old septic field has sand to a depth of a couple of feet.  Arabis likes sand.

At last the Arabis has took.  We have maybe a dozen plants seeding out at this actual nonce. Here's a dramatic look at the siliques, the plants most noteworthy feature.

Bug Eyed

Some bugs, maybe most bugs, aint particularly bug eyed.  Some are.

May Day!

Whoa!  An important holiday featuring both religious and secular attributes has arrived.  Yes.  May Day is celebrated by pagans, pagans-at-heart and class conscious workers on a practically global scale. 

Like here is a typical pagan, a white-faced pig-nosed fly working to feed itself.  Is it class conscious?  You betchum.

Interestingly, the white-faced pig-nosed fly is the main pollinator for Polytaenia nuttallii or texana, whichever:  this fly and assorted wasps including a huge tarantula killer. What the heck?  Where does she find any tarantulas in these parts?