The Ozark Hillbilly, to be specific:
Top pic: This is a Wolf spider, tho I couldn’t begin to say which species. I once found a very large female on my front porch who looked especially… Different tho it wasn’t obvious as to why. Looking closer, I realized there were almost a thousand little spider eyes staring back at me. She was carrying hundreds of babies on her back. Then I made a wrong move or bumped into something causing them to scatter and I watched in amazement as they spread out over my porch floor and wall.
It was years before I learned that these holes are the calling card of the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker. They drill them into the trunks of trees and then feed on the sap and whatever bugs the sap may attract. Generally, this does not harm the tree.
Weaver: Who doesn’t love a face full of Orb Weaver web when walking thru the woods? Protip: Carry a stick and wave it around in front of you.
I am not a bat expert, but I think this cutie is a big brown anyway. S/he is the right size and the pics on the internet are a good match. This individual took up residence in my front porch ceiling a couple years back and it was kinda nice having somebody to greet the day with me while I had my morning coffee.
Garden Spider: You guys have seen pics of these monsters from me before, but I just can’t resist them.
Wrangler Ants: I found these guys tending to a herd of… I don’t know what is on the underside of this sunflower leaf. I suspect they are responsible for all my sunflower heads getting chopped as soon as they bloom.
***********
The ground, even in my big raised beds, is frozen. And it’s been raining or drizzling most of the past week. So I can’t do any yard work, even though we haven’t had any real snow yet this season…
And, yes, given the kind of climate-change hell some of y’all are living with, I realize mine are extremely first-world problems!
What’s going on in your gardens (indoor / planning / memories), this first week of 2022?
Baud
Cool photos.
NotMax
Can we be sure those holes aren’t made by robotic lookalikes which inject the trees with nanobots so the Department of the Interior can spy on you using 5G?
//
Geo Wilcox
Every thing here is a swamp. No snow just an inch and a half of rain we did not need. I have to wear wading boots to get to my bird feeders. I prefer it to ice but please, send that rain to a place that needs it because we sure as shit do not in SE IN. And just forget about yard work. I walk in my grass back yard and sink in inch or two into the clay underneath. GROSS!
raven
It’s raining like a mofo right now!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I sent Anne 2 sets of pics 2 weeks ago knowing it was only a matter of time before she’d be picture less because nobody else would send anything in. Who knew it would be last week and this week?
Anne needs pics folks.
@NotMax: We can’t be sure of anything.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Those are really good pictures. I usually try not to look at spiders that closely, but these are great.
p.a.
Week w/o sun here in SE New England; drizzle, showers, gray, grey, gris, grigio…
Might as well be March. But still harvesting collard greens here in the urban hellhole.
When I was clearing leaves I moved the old metal trashcans that I still keep because: entropy, and there were 6+ redbacked salamanders sacked out for winter underneath. Replaced gently and let that batch of leaves be.
JPL
When I first moved to my current location, there was an old house on the property behind me. A few years ago, they tore it down, and the bats that protected my property from mosquitos disappeared. They arrived at dusk, and it was magical to watch.
JPL
@raven: Tomorrow they are expecting snow in the mountains.
debbie
Yeah, but how was that paella?
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m happy I’m old enough I‘ll have forgotten seeing them by the time I fall asleep tonight.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Red backed and spotted salamanders are the 2 I find most often around here. Unless I’m in a cave where I usually find… Wait for it…. Cave salamanders. Bet you never would’ve guessed that, would you now?
@JPL: I’ve got lots of bat memories but my favorite is coming out of a cave after having been stuck for several hours in a very uncomfortable position. It was a warm February eve but the cave damp had sunk deep into my bones, so I was sitting by the fire soaking up it’s warmth and reveling in the much undervalued ability to fold my arms across my chest again. I looked up to where the setting sun had slipped below the horizon with it’s fading light still coloring the sky. In a clear patch of sky among the trees I could see 3 or 4 bats flitting about eating the early riser insects that had also been awakened by the warm winter day.
All the time I had been stuck, it was always only a matter of time before my fellow cavers returned with a rope and somebody small enough to reach me, so it hadn’t been some near death experience, just painful. But sitting there in front of the fire, looking up and seeing those bats flit about the pinkened sky, it felt really really good to be alive.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Delicious.
NotMax
Thanks to the Zoomers who showed up yesterday. Good fun!
Covered the gamut, from COVID to Keir Dullea.
Anyway
Very cool pics.
CCL
Picked and cooked fall planted collards for our new year’s meal – first time using freshly picked collards. Watching amaryllis grow. Fretting over the on sale now peonies I bought in a moment of madness. Studying garden catalogues as they start to arrive.
oldgold
At West of Eden I have lots of mature trees and an abundance of sap. Anyone who knows me can affirm the latter.
Last summer a male yellow bellied sapsucker took up residence. Even though his rat-a-tat drumming awakened me often before my preferred first yawn at noon and he made my trees look like the holy of holies, we coexisted in peace.
Then, he got lonely and sought female companionship. I learned the male yellow bellied sapsucker drum not just for sap and bugs, but for sex. And, the smart ones will rat-a-tat on metal gutters to amplify their concupiscent condition from dawn to dusk. Unfortunately, my randy bird was a smart one; and, a determined pecker-head. After days turned into weeks, my greatest fear was “ Damantion! I have an incel yellow bellied sap sucker!”
Alas, a mate was attracted and after sating his lust he resumed making Swiss cheese out of my trees.
Then, my neighbor, Phil Anders, started banging a broom stick against his gutters. But, that is a story for another day.
p.a.
@OzarkHillbilly: Used to see many more spotted than redback, that has changed. At the same time changed from predominantly slug to predominantly snail garden pests.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am ceaselessly amazed at the beautiful shots you take. Thanks, always, for doing this.
Jake Gibson
My father used to call those spiders Texas Widows because of their size and markings.
Kristine
If those critters on the sunflowers are aphids—they look like black bean aphids—they have a symbiotic relationship with ants. They provide honeydew that the ants eat, and in return the ants protect them.
OzarkHillbilly
HA! Yes, I’ve seen and heard this behavior and find it funny as hell. Of course, I won’t be laughing if he starts poking holes in MY brand new gutters.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kristine: I don’t know what they are (I’ve read of the aphid/ant relationship) but can say with certainty that these ants and whatever they were tending have a symbiotic relationship. I watched them over several days/week. Exactly what the ants got out of it I was never able to say, but the little critters were definitely protected.
satby
I started the morning sleeping late (6 am ?) with a very anxious C.K.Dexter Haven more than ready to go out. One cup of coffee later, was able to lure the semi-feral orange cat inside for canned food far enough to close the door and capture him. He’s now in my isolation room (for unvetted cats until they’re immunized) and pretty unhappy with me. But it will be frigid over the next few weeks and he wasn’t using the heated shelter I had put out for him.
Without having to worry about him being too rambunctious for the older dog now gone, Dexter and I are getting along better. Though he’s still an anxious chewer, and two nights ago chomped up a glass thermometer, with no apparent ill effects. He’s lucky he’s a very sweet dog.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh.
Cermet
That first pic is so like life – beauty but danger and sooner or later, certain death awaits. Guess that explains why so many cling to religion.
Kay
My daughter told me this morning they’re seeing an uptick in peds patients who test positive for covid but are in for respiratory issues that are not caused by covid, as they understand covid. So that’s a nightmare. Imagine trying to explain some secondary effect to the idiot American public who never understood a direct effect, if indeed that’s what they’re seeing. Fingers crossed it’s just a lot of kids with unrelated breathing problems.
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: I was wondering if they were aphids! Certain ant species “milk” aphids, as I recall. This wonderful world!
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: Religion gives answers to the unanswerable questions. Whether they are the right answers or not doesn’t really seem to matter.
Sallycat
I have hibiscus bushes that develop many buds, but then they fall off before they can bloom. I have determined that this is caused by hibiscus mealy bugs. I have also learned that there are lots of different kinds of mealy bugs, none of which are good for blooming plants. I spray with Neem oil; this seems to slow the mealy bugs down so I get some blooms. Aphids can also cause bud drop. My 2 cents.
WaterGirl
@Sallycat: Are mealy bugs the same as white fly? It’s the white fly that love my tropical hibiscus.
Kristine
@Miss Bianca: I learned so much about insects during the master gardener program. Parasitic wasps are a bit terrifying.
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: Did you know that wasps pollinate figs? And that the nice pollinator wasps are sometimes cannibalized by parasitic wasps during the performance of their duties? This I did find out till recently!
eclare
@satby: Yay! On the feral kitty! I know this work in progress has taken months, if not a year.
Glad you and CK are getting along better…I had an anxious chewer who destroyed my dining room curtains, among other things.
Kristine
@Miss Bianca: I saw this past summer how wasps fed on my flowers even more so than the bees. I also learned how protective they are of their nests–got stung three times, and had reactions that made me think I may be allergic. Last summer’s drought seemed to make them waspier than usual.
Sallycat
@WaterGirl: No, mealy bugs don’t fly. The Neem oil may help with them too. (No personal interest in Neem.)
debbie
@WaterGirl:
They’re white fuzzy blobs. They’re more prolific than fruit flies and spread to other plants practically instantaneously. Direct contact with a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol kills them, but if there are lots of them, it’s better to spray rubbing alcohol all over the plant to make sure you also kill the nymphs, etc.
JAM
I also like to take pictures of bugs. I actually have some pretty good pics of a wolf mama carrying her babies on her back and the argiope spider who left me three egg cases last summer. I had to leave the tomato cage/plant they are hanging on instead of clearing it away so they would survive. She killed a lot of pests like Japanese beetles and grasshoppers, so it seemed wrong for me to disturb her babies.
evodevo
@OzarkHillbilly: The ants suck processed plant sap (Honeydew) from the aphids and protect them from predators like ladybugs and lacewings. The aphids are more damaging to the plants while being “herded”, because their population is not controlled. If you get rid of the ants (ant traps maybe?), the predators can pick off the aphids and reduce the plant damage…
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: I haven’t been stung by any wasps lately, but in the last few years I have discovered that I appear to be allergic to honeybee stings, which is unfortunate, because I brew mead and was hoping to be able to have my own beehives someday. Oh well.
(And whether it’s related to the honeybee venom reaction or not, I suddenly seem to be developing allergies to other things lately that never used to bother me. Like hair dye.)
WaterGirl
@debbie: I take it that the alcohol doesn’t hurt the leaves?
jnfr
I ordered more plants this week. Make it be March now, please.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
It doesn’t at all. I was also surprised, but the plant I’d brought home was so infested (I didn’t know what to look for then), I basically had nothing to lose by trying it.