hurricane-2011: August 2007

Date With a Katydid

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I'd stopped at the local bakery for coffee in the middle of Tuesday's "post office walk." I was on my second cup when I saw what I first thought was a small piece of paper being blown around in the parking lot. But then the hops seemed a bit too regular to be due solely to wind. I figured it must be an insect, and one that was in some distress.

I didn't realize I was in for a bit of bonding....

I finished my coffee, packed up my things, and all but raced out the door to find a katydid with a bum leg. She seemed to be hopping around fairly aimlessly -- I say "she" because she had an ovipositor.

I wanted to get to her before the bottom of someone's foot or a car tire did.

I coaxed her onto my hand and took her to the nearest vegetation island. Usually the insects I escort off the road are happy to jump onto greenery, but this one clung all the harder to my finger. And that was after our photo shoot, with me working the camera with my non-dominant left hand.

The University of Florida has a terrific Katydid Key that I used to narrow down the species. The U FL site also has recordings of the songs sung by the males of each species. After a bit of consultation I'm fairly sure this is a female broad-tipped conehead (Neoconocephalus triops).

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Family Tettigoniidae (Katydids). The cone shape of the head means she's in the Subfamily Copiphorinae (coneheaded katydids). "Four genera and 22 species occur in America north of Mexico. All occur in the eastern United States and only 3 species have been found west of Texas," according to U FL.

One genus contains species that possess shorter forewings, so my companion wasn't in that one. Of the remaining three genera, the species of one possess a cone ending in a sharp, downturned point, which is not the case here.

That left two genera, one of which contains species possessing that little notch in the bottom front of the cone. That places my companion in the genus Neoconocephalus, or "common coneheads."

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The camera has not been rotated. She knew how to hang on. If you look closely you can see her claws.

One of my childhood buddies was a praying mantis that lived in the Rose of Sharon tree in my back yard in Brooklyn. I visited with it, let it crawl on my arm, and then let it crawl back into the tree. It was a quite magical relationship -- and there was something very special about the slight pinch of those claws on my skin. I got the same sensation with this lady.

The dark coloration at the front end of her cone helped me narrow down her species to broad-tripped (triops). The Latin name means "three-eyed." Says Bugguide.Net, "This refers to the black spot on the cone, having the appearance of a third eye."

Every time I tried to set her down among the parking lot vegetation she grabbed my finger as if to say Nooooooooo!, so I headed down to the "post office pond." That meant walking at the edge of a main road for several blocks, down an incline to where the pond was located. Fanny pack behind me, tote bag and camera bag slung over my left shoulder, left hand cradling the camera I wore around my neck, and right hand held out a bit from my body with my friend hanging onto my finger.

Of course I talked to her. "Maybe you'll like the pond. I don't know. You comfy? If you don't like the pond I'll take you home with me. You'll tell me what you like to eat, okay?..."

I almost named her. But the day was hot and the only name I could think of was Katie, which was way too much of a cliche.

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The background has changed from asphalt to water.

That long slender rod between her legs is her ovipositor. Females are larger than males, and this one was thick enough so that I wondered if she might be gravid (pregnant). I hadn't the foggiest idea. Her right rear leg (the one in the foreground) is the one I think is injured, because it remained relatively unbent as she hopped.

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This top-down (ventral) view of her cone provided another clue as to her species. (U FL: "No other conehead has a cone that is wider than long.") Hence the name "broad-tipped." That very front top part is bulbous.

At the pond I finally convinced her to let go of my finger. She moved a bit toward the water and then remained fairly motionless on the moss. I offered my hand again, but she declined. I figure by this time she's bird food, fish food, happily laying eggs, or is otherwise occupied with whatever occupies katydids.

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is forthcoming from Aisling Press and can be pre-ordered here. The Deviations page has additional details.

Covenant is Available for Pre-Order!

Cover artist: Bo Savino, Aisling Press

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series,
is available for pre-order at Aisling Press.

About Covenant:

TripStone hates to kill her gods but she must feed her people. An accomplished hunter in the Masari village of Crossroads, she is charged with the ritual slaying of the sacred Yata.

Her comrade Ghost tries to end Masari dependence on Yata meat by performing experiments punishable by death. His jeopardy increases when he shelters a teenage runaway sickened by fasting.

Their worldview shatters when they harbor a Yata woman raised to be livestock instead of a god. But Crossroads itself is imperiled. Hidden in the far woods, a secret Yata militia is preparing to alter the balance of power.

About the Deviations series:

Long ago the Masari and the Yata hunted together in peace, until the species they drove to extinction included those possessing nutrients necessary to Masari survival. The Yata then became the only source of those nutrients. Deviations tells how these peoples cope with the reality of being sentient creatures forced to play the roles of predator and prey, and how several of them try to thwart long-established conventions in the hope of overcoming their biological imperative. In Deviations love triumphs in the midst of death. The series focuses on the social, ethical, and spiritual dilemmas surrounding both the literal cannibalism of the societies involved and the many ways in which their different communities feed off each other.

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I have the following promotional appearances in Florida planned:

Necronomicon, Tampa's Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Convention, Friday, October 5 to Sunday, October 7, 2007, at the Hyatt in downtown Tampa

St. Petersburg Festival of Reading, Saturday, October. 27, 2007, at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg

with more possible later in the year. Stay tuned!

[end of entry]

Raw Data

My latest completed journal notebook. The digitally-blurred interior shot is of the last entry page (held open by a large binder clip). I've written people's contact information down on the very last page (one more flip).

I've written in this blog before about journaling (see, for example, this entry), but seeing the "Dear Diary" prompt on Sunday Scribblings inspired this installment....

Thanks to the discussion boards at the Moleskinerie pool, I learned that a silver metallic Sharpie is great for writing on the covers (and spines) of these notebooks (I use the large sketchbook, 5.25 x 8.25 inches). That makes my job much easier when I'm trying to find things.

My August 13, 2007, entry continued in the notebook I'm filling now. These journals are where I amass what I call my "raw data."

Back in April I posted the following on Flickr:

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I've been keeping a journal for decades. These photos show most but not all of my collection of filled notebooks.

Upper left: I've recently started using Moleskine sketchbooks. My in-process journal lives in my fanny pack and goes everywhere with me.

Upper right: Before I switched to Moleskines (far right) I was using Canson Classic sketchbooks (center). I use the wire-bound Cachet sketchbooks on the left in my free-writing group. At first I kept index cards of journal topics, but now I go through widely-spaced but fairly intense periods where I type my entries on computer and use the Search function when I want to find information. I have yet to input the writings in the notebooks shown in this shot. Edit: I've since done the inputting.

Lower Left: This steamer trunk was in the garage of my parents' house, where Mary and I now live. I don't know how old it is, but I thought it was the perfect place to store old journal notebooks.

Lower Right: My notebooks range from three-ring binders to inexpensive blank books to the Moleskines I use now. A folding stool at right holds the trunk open. The trunk now resides in my studio, next to my desk.

Thanks to Armand Frasco for soliciting this entry for posting here on Notebookism.com.

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That prompted someone to ask me how long it took me to fill a notebook. I answered:

It varies, due to different notebook sizes and what's happening in my life at the time. I wrote much more prolifically in the first years I was living on my own, which started in March of 1983.

Cool question, though (and thanks!) -- made me curious, myself, so I did some number crunching, pulling out a couple notebooks at random among the ones I'd typed up.

The notebook that holds entries spanning October 7, 1985 through January 3, 1986 yielded 211-1/2 pages of single-spaced typed text. That was during my Scripsit days (8-inch floppy discs), so those pages have been scanned in and turned into .jpg files. Word-count estimates place that notebook at 105,730 words, or an average of about 1,188 words/day.

In contrast, my notebook that spans March 24 through October 2, 2003 contains 46,206 words, or an average of 239.4 words/day.

On the other hand, I started my first blog in 1999, and while I keep computer files of those entries they're not in my notebooks. Pre-blog, much of that material probably would have made it into the handwritten journal. On the third hand, my blog writing is geared toward an audience, so it's different in some ways from my notebook writing. On the fourth hand, I occasionally include excerpts from my handwritten journal in the blog entries.

But of course I had to do a word-count there... :)

The blog entries for the same period of that second notebook come to 66,272 words. If one were to combine the two, the word count would become 112,478 words, or an average of almost 583 words/day.

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I advise all my students to keep a hardcopy journal that they can take anywhere with them. From my class handout:

A journal is, quite simply, a place to write with no holds barred. It will serve you well in a variety of uses:

1. Practice. No matter what you write, you are writing.

2. Raw data. All the details, insights, minutiae, rants, and anything else you write down is potential material for more crafted writing, be it in stories, poems, articles, or other forms of expression, like art or music.

3. Self-help. Talking to yourself on paper or using your journal as a confidante can help you solve problems and make burdens easier to bear. I have found sometimes that what I’ve written can serve as valuable advice to myself years later.

4. Legacy. As journals across the eons have shown, even minutiae have value for future generations. (See, for example, Lillian Schlissel’s collection Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, New York: Schocken Books, 1982.)

What to write in:

Above all, choose what you are comfortable with. When I was a teenager I used a small 3-ring binder that I filled with lined paper. (The “diaries” sold in stationery stores never had enough room for me.) The first diary I kept, at age 6, was in an old New York City Board of Education booklet that my mother brought home from her teaching job and my father covered with gold and white striped wallpaper, artfully printing my name on the cover. It had wide-ruled paper on which I printed my entries in pencil.

Today my journal is in an artist’s sketch book with unlined, acid-free paper. Sometimes I will sketch in addition to writing: my cats, a coffee cup, a crude outline of objects from a dream.

Some people are more comfortable with spiral-bound notebooks, or with loose sheets of paper. Some may use a leather-bound blank book, others large index cards or napkins. Some use pencil or black pen; others use colorful gel pens in every shade, fountain pens, magic markers. Some tape or paste pictures onto the page, or newspaper articles that catch their eye.

Use what is comfortable for you. Experiment. Make sure your journal is transportable so that you can carry it with you. I have written journal entries on planes, trains, automobiles, boats. I have written them on hiking trails, in doctor’s offices, in restaurants, by candlelight during power outages, in hotel lobbies, in hospital waiting rooms.

What to write:

Anything goes. The only rule in keeping a journal is to write, period. My journal includes, but is not limited to:

•assumptions
•brainstorms
•complaints
•conversations
•descriptions of nature
•descriptions of people
•divination (e.g., I-Ching, Tarot, Runes)
•dreams (including REM-sleep dreams, wishes, fantasies)
•events
•insecurities
•letters sent and unsent
•lists of things done
•memories
•observations
•medical details
•poetry
•puns
•prayers
•quotations from books, songs, etc.
•rants
•reactions to news stories
•story and other ideas
•to-do lists
•whining
•worries
•writing exercises

Keeping track of it all:

After writing, if you want to organize your journal (this is entirely optional), consider how you want to use it. Do you want to concentrate on events? On emotional states? On particular people?

When I was a teenager my journal followed my own invented calendar. Fortunately there were a few specific events (such as New Year’s Eve) that allowed me to create a Rosetta Stone for dating purposes decades later. Every so often I type up my entries and use my word processor’s search function to find specific journal details. Years ago I kept a subject index on index cards.

You may or may not want to be that detailed. Sometimes, filling a journal notebook and putting it in a safe place to read again years later can yield tremendous insights. This can also be useful if you’re not sure how you may want to use your journal material in the future, particularly if your priorities change over the years.

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Earlier this year, creative nonfiction of mine taken from a journal entry was published in Reed.

My contributor's copy is at center right in the storage box, keeping company with other contributor's copies.

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One of the discussion topics on Moleskinerie was, "What was your first entry?" I wrote:

After using other types of journal notebooks for decades, I made my first Moleskine entry on April 7, 2006. Excerpts follow:

12:41 a.m. Will be going to bed soon -- am headphoned into Ned Rorem's symphonies. Not looking to stay up too late, since I will have only about 5 hrs of sleep anyway, before I drive Mary to her stress test. Meanwhile I sit and admire this book, this piece of history. Reading the quotes on the stamp card reminds me of why I'm here. I need to remember that, keep doing my Real Job.

7:30 a.m. Waiting for Mary to be called for her stress test. I did have 2 short sleep periods -- dreamt I heard people talking outside -- a man was saying, "That's because he's an entomologist," or something similar. I heard their footfalls. The sound clarity was what convinced me it was a dream. I awoke around 3:30 a.m., based on Mary (also awake) telling me the time.

Fortunately I fell back asleep and dreamt something about cars being towed on a barge across the water, to a kind of island. It had something to do with the Mob. My 6 a.m. alarm blasted me out of that one.

Fog driving in this morning, in patchy islands gathered mostly inside stands of trees and other areas of vegetation. Very little on the roads. Looked quite enchanting. Dawn-pink sky as I drove east, the sun just beginning to show as a fuzzy orange ball as I turned toward the hospital.

11:30 a.m. Mary went in at 8 for a predicted 90-min. test. I left to get her antigen, arrived at [her doctor] at 8:15. They ramped up the dosage so I'll start her on .1 cc tomorrow -- Monday, rather. Drove home, put the antigen in the fridge, petted [our cat] Daisy (couldn't see [our other cat] Red; I imagine he was in the bedroom), took a bathroom break, drove back here. Three slowdowns for school crossings in both directions. Got here at 9:50, asked if Mary was still taking the test. Yes, and she'll be another half hour.

I checked again at 11:28. She is still back there, and it will still be "another half hour." No explanation as to why things are taking so long.

I've had a power bar and tea (before we initially left home); Mary hasn't had anything since midnight, the cut-off time for the test. I've had maybe 2 hrs of sleep. Sat here with my eyes closed to try to get in a quasi-nap, when I wasn't looking at the omnipresent TV (CNN Headline News) or looking through the paper. I've got the Corbett with me [Jim Corbett's book The Man-Eaters of Kumaon] and may try to read it if I have any earplugs in the fanny pack -- otherwise I won't be able to.

No earplugs seem to be had. I'll have to put in a pair.

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Fortunately, Mary passed her stress test with flying colors.

From the Cool Coincidence department: I discovered Moleskine notebooks through Flickr because many artists draw terrific things in them and then post the photos. Among artists, Moleskines were used by Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Among writers, Moleskines were used by Ernest Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin. (The notebooks these people used are not exactly like the current Moleskines, but the current version is based on those journals.)

Chatwin's name is what drew me to splurge and try one. (From my journal entry of March 25, 2006: "Utrecht is having a spring sale, and this time their catalogue includes the Moleskines I've heard so much about...") I had read Chatwin's book The Songlines, which details his travels through Australia, as part of preparing for my own trip there in August 1991. But Chatwin's details are interwoven with many extraordinary threads.

I wrote in my journal on August 4, 1991, "Chatwin writes the way I want to: his piecing together of fragments: slice of life, philosophy, references -- woven into a pattern, his own Songline. The book speaks to my heart in many ways -- makes me want to buy several copies to give away."

Which I did.

Fifteen years after reading The Songlines I'd forgotten that Chatwin had written about Moleskines in that work ("...and is responsible for naming them 'les carnets moleskines'" -- BBC). Other details had riveted me. Back on August 4, 1991, I was still brainstorming on ways to expand my 1985 short story that finally became Covenant and the rest of the Deviations series. On that day I found and copied into my journal entry a quote from The Songlines that became the epigraph for Covenant more than a decade later.

A bit over six months after I bought my first Moleskine I had a contract for Covenant.

For some number crunching on the Moleskine's aesthetic qualities and why they can be so mesmerizing, check out this discussion thread.

Florida Is For Lubbers

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Lubber grasshoppers are considered pests. I think they are stunningly beautiful and psychedelic creatures. The adults, that is. The juveniles get their coolness from racing stripes (as in this photo I took of the young'uns back in April).

Ever since I got my good camera, I've been on the lookout for an adult to photograph, and early Wednesday evening I finally got my chance. This one was hanging out in the loquat tree in our yard. I was scouting around the place, waiting for Mary to get ready for our post office walk....

The Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea guttata, Family Romaleidae (Lubber Grasshoppers)) is the only species of lubber in the east. These grasshoppers are flightless and move slowly. "Coloration is aposematic (warning), apparently this species is distasteful to vertebrate predators," says Bugguide.Net. "When disturbed, it will spread its wings, hiss, and secrete a smelly fluid from its spiracles."

Lubber in a Loquat Tree

(Can compare with the video of juvenile lubbers here.)

How much do I love the markings on these critters? I made this "rug" from a digital snippet.

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I was already groovin' on the cool breeze and some terrific cloudscapes, which made up for seeing how very sad our volunteer cherry by the garage was. In a single day all of its leaves had turned from green to brown, though its bark still looked and felt quite healthy. The first thing I checked was the surrounding foliage, which also looked fine -- because if foliage in an area suddenly dies back it could mean a sinkhole. Our other volunteer cherry is still sprightly and happy.

Mary thinks it may have been lightning. When I was at the library on Monday, she'd heard a very close crack during that day's fairly impressive storm. She wonders if our toad got toasted. Not "our" toad, really, but one that likes to hang out around the house. We agreed that "Frosted Flakes -- with Toasted Toad!" is a very nice if somewhat unsettling alliteration.

Here are a few of the cloudscapes. These are all uncropped, straight out of the camera.

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An orbweaver (orchard orbweaver, I think) had spun a web in my holly.

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We spotted a daddy long-legs (species TBD) over at the mall.

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I've sent in my galley corrections and list of potential reviewers. As I read through the galleys in the library on Monday I was joined by this little buddy, whom I photographed through one of several floor-to-ceiling picture windows. It's about a half-inch long.

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I finally was able to get a decent photo of Mars in Taurus.

I took the photo on the left on August 22, 2006, at 3:37 AM (EST) (The unlabeled version of last years's shot is originally posted here). I took the photo on the right on August 13, 2007, at around 5:13 AM (EST).

This year, Mars has joined the picture. More detail is in the large view.

I've labeled Aldebaran (the brightest star in Taurus, representing the "bull's eye"), the Pleiades, and (in the right-hand photo) Mars, plus I've outlined the head of Taurus.

My camera is not geared toward astrophotography. In both cases I aimed pretty much blind through my viewfinder and used my longest exposure of 4 seconds. I tweaked both photos in MS Photo Editor to bring out brightness and contrast. Between that and changes in atmospheric conditions, I suspect some of the dimmer "stars" on the right might be noise. Noise also accounts for apparent changes in star brightness from one photo to the next.

For several days the sky had been too hazy for me to catch Mars being clearly visible in Taurus. But we had a strong wind on the previous night that blew much of that haze away. Seen with the naked eye, Mars and Aldebaran are both reddish objects, with Mars being the brighter of the two. They were rising toward and pretty close to zenith when I took the shot on the right. I wanted to get in a photo of Mars especially after receiving an e-mail with this hoax.

Finally, after we've done without A/C for four weeks now, someone is coming by later today to measure for the new unit. Hurrah!

What I'll be doing this weekend

Around 10 AM on Friday four boxes for de-cluttering arrived.
Around 3 PM my transcription job arrived.
Around 6 PM my galleys for Covenant arrived in my e-mail inbox. This is a printout of the .pdf file.

I'd say that pretty much takes care of my weekend....

I also added to Book #6 for the first time in nine days, though I devoted part of Thursday to scribbling notes and have now crossed the 10,000-word mark in the draft (10,384 words, to be exact).

My note-taking headquarters was the local Hungry Howie's, where I ruminated in my journal while downing a spicy chicken salad and soda. I consider diners, cafes, and fast food joints my "writing table rentals." (Added to that nowadays is "A/C rental.")

I'll be using four POVs to tell #6's story. I was fairly clear on three of the characters, but the fourth was problematic. She is as crucial as the others, but I had to find where the drama lay in her part of the tale. So I sat down with my soda and my chicken salad and asked, "What is she risking? What has she got to lose?"

From Naomi Epel's The Observation Deck in her chapter, "Raise the Stakes": "Ken Follett says that you need the stakes to be high for every one of your fictional characters. If you are writing about a bank robbery, make sure that your robber has a compelling need to steal the money. It's not enough that he wants to be rich. He needs to have an ambitious plan that requires a million dollars. He has to have someone or something that will die without the money. The bank should also be at serious risk if a million dollars is lost. Maybe the bank's insurance has been canceled or the banker is in serious debt, having 'borrowed' funds to cover a secret gambling loss."

I thought of Epel's chapter as I scribbled in my journal.

My notes are my version of an outline, except they're much sloppier. I write them on the fly in tandem with the story. They're full of trial balloons that never see draft. I talk to myself on paper, in a combination of half-formed thoughts, incomplete sentences, point-counterpoint type arguments, rambling monologues, to-do lists, flowcharts, and other graphic representations with what for me passes for "drawing." By the time I finished Thursday's installment I had a good idea of some conflicts, some scene details, and the inner workings of this person and how she puts herself in jeopardy. I saw how and where to position her allies and antagonists.

On Friday I cut out her original, 955-word opening narrative and put in a 1,478-word replacement. The doorbell rang as I was writing and I answered it to find my transcription job.

A new storage box now holds the magazines, anthologies, etc., in which I've been published. Most of those items had spent years overflowing the old cardboard box partially visible at upper left.

I've carried the publications through multiple moves in multiple states (the earliest material is from when I still lived in Brooklyn -- my first published fiction in the small press dates from 30 years ago).

I also bring a "show and tell" collection (along with correspondence consisting of rejection slips, acceptances, contracts, etc.) to and from the final (marketing) class of my creative writing course, so that adds wear and tear on the items.

I was thrilled to give these publications a more durable home. The issues of Star*Line and Reed contain an article and creative nonfiction, respectively, two of several pieces that have come out so far this year. File folders at bottom center hold some of the publishing-related correspondence. I've got more in other folders, but I might consolidate everything in the box. A mostly-complete bibliography is here.

Pictorial Catch-Up

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Sachem feeding on lantana outside the library at around 1:15 PM on August 3. Thanks to Paul Kinslow at Bugguide.Net for the ID.

Atalopedes campestris, Family Hesperiidae (Skippers). According to Bugguide, this species is "resident in southeastern United States, and extreme southwest, Mexico. Fall migrant northward into great plains, along west coast, rarely reaching southern Canada."

I've drafted another article for Poets' Forum Magazine, submitted three poems (the maximum) to the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Sonnet contest, and have not yet melted after three weeks with no A/C (we're hoping to remedy that soon)....

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The Sachem joined the Yellow-banded Wasp Moth shown in this entry, and a Gulf Fritillary.

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Agraulis vanillae, Family Nymphalidae (Brushfooted Butterflies), Subfamily Heliconiinae (Heliconians and Fritillaries). This species frequents the south but occasionally strays northward according to Bugguide.Net, which adds, "Larvae feed on various species of Passion Flower (Passiflora)."

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At around 10 PM on July 24, Mary and I came across this little buddy:

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My guess is that it's a green treefrog (Hyla cinerea). Mary, who literally helps worms across the street, spent some time chasing the frog down so that she could escort it off the strip mall walkway and onto a vegetation island. She really wanted to take it to a nearby retention pond whose frogs were already concertizing in fine voice, but she learned quickly that a frog, once captured in one's hands, can swiftly wriggle free and tearass down the promenade.

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Pawpaw Sphinx Moth, Dolba hyloeus, Family Sphingidae (Sphinx or Hawk Moths). According to Bugguide, the Pawpaw ranges throughout Eastern North America and is more common in the south. Its season is June-September. Along with hollies, blueberries, and sweetfern, the pawpaw is one of the plants on which the larvae of this moth feed.

We passed into the drywall phase of Art Center renovations, and I've heard that interior painting has now begun. This photoset has the whole gaggle of shots I've posted from the beginning of the process.

The Art Center Theatre's run of The Music Man has ended, and preparations for the 2007-2008 season are now underway.

Back on a stormy July 31 night, Mary found this Wolf spider shopping for food in our living room and got me out of bed at around 5:30 AM to photograph it.

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Family Lycosidae. I'm not sure of the species. We freed it in the garage, where I took these shots.

Mary had captured our guest in a pint container. That's her hand for size comparison. If you go to the large view and scroll to the right and down, you can make out its eight eyes in three rows: two rows of two large eyes, and one row of four much smaller eyes just above the fangs.

At the time I took these shots I was working on an article on bug photography for The Link, where I tell of how I ooh and aah over critters like this.

Signed, Sealed, and In The Mail

Phaon Crescent butterfly. Large view.

It's now official. The new publisher (same people) for Covenant is Aisling Press. As of this writing the web site is still under development. I'll provide the URL when it's ready for prime time. Galleys are in the works.

I weed-whacked in two installments, finishing up yesterday. On Sunday I waited until 6:30 PM, when the sun was fairly low and the heat wasn't as sizzling. I stopped when I ran out of light -- but not before I took a break to photograph this lovely Phaon Crescent butterfly:

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Phyciodes phaon, Family Nymphalidae (Brushfooted Butterflies). This is a tiny butterfly, with a wingspan of about an inch.

This species ranges "from Southern California east through South Texas and Florida to coastal South Carolina. Strays to eastern Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri," according to Bugguide.Net.

Mary joined me to pull some skunkvine and to scout around for "spiky dandelions" (which she didn't find). She noted how tall the oak that she had nurtured from acorn had grown....

The oak is the tree at far left. The taller tree growing behind and directly to the left of her is a volunteer cherry.

She had picked the acorn up in the fall of 2003 and grew its sproutling in a pot indoors for almost two years. During that time she moved it from window to window to follow the sun. In August 2005 she planted a spindly seedling outside, with aluminum foil around the base to discourage cutworms and a tomato cage around the rest of the plant.

For comparison: I took the photo shown below on August 16, 2005, with an Argus DC1500 before my "good camera" days. I manipulated the photo to make the seedling more visible.

Mary noticed a cluster of tiny wasps on the oak.

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These wasps were each about 10mm long. Thanks to Sean McCann for genus ID. He says, "Perhaps Scolia nobilitata." Eric R. Eaton adds that these are males. "They congregate to sleep like this."

That tugged at my heartstrings. Itty bitty sleepyheads.

Decision

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Is it a wasp or is it a moth? Is it black or is it orange? Decisions, decisions.

Yellow-banded Wasp Moth, Syntomeida ipomoeae, Family Arctiidae (Tiger Moths). This species ranges through Florida and Georgia. Says Bugguide.Net, "Adults fly at least April to October (perhaps all year) in Florida." This little one was feeding on lantana outside the library on Friday.

My submission to Bugguide is a first for this species. (Grin.) Thanks to John and Jane Balaban for the ID. Robin McLeod created the new guide page.

For Sunday Scribblings. Theme: "Decision."

“We are not doers, but deciders. Once our decision is clear, the doing becomes effortless, for then the universe supports and empowers our actions.” -- Ralph Blum, The Book of Runes.

Oscillations

Our leaders tossed a coin and tempted fate.
Blind and deaf, the gods ignored our pleas
While our people froze, wracked with doubt,
Our land in paralysis.
No one could tame the fear
Choking every move,
Error's spectre.
Then a child
Just said,
"Choose."

"Oh."
Ice split.
The town thawed
And creaked to life.
Pressing into fog,
We fought through our malaise,
Knowing that we could be damned
For making the wrong decision.
So many choices, so much to lose,
So much to gain in a moment of risk.

One random act unravels tapestries.
Lifelines fall away. Existence stops.
An insect dies beneath a thumb
Or suffers the doomed, webbed turn.
Something dies. Something lives.
A body at rest
Remains at rest.
One decides
To move.
Go.

Now?
Right place
But wrong time.
Everything shifts.
A new path opens:
Plan B. Plan C. Plan X.
Courage instilled by blind faith
Or by an itch, a drive, a need.
We pare desire down to the bone
Until all that remains is readiness.

-------------------------------------------------

This form is a variant of one called Count Up (referenced in this list of poetic forms). Stanzas alternate, decreasing or increasing by one syllable per line, ten syllables down to one and then one up to ten, then repeating the pattern.

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