Category Archive: bits and pieces

A Multi-Species, Multi-Tasking Spring Workout

Okay, everybody!  It’s obvious that the dead plants along the edge of the pond have to be cleared out, and goodness knows that will be a workout. But we only have one week… Continue reading

Spiders and Snakes and a City Girl

Originally posted on BaseballGal :
I am, by all standards of measure, a city girl. I come from the neighborhoods of curbed streets with water drainage thingys and sidewalks – even bike routes. Places…

Host and Guests – Ludwigia

I have a goal to identify all the species living on our farm.  The pond plants in particular have been a problem for me, because a lot of them look similar.  And even… Continue reading

Desert Beauty

…the sight of any beauty reminds me that I am a savage.  Yes… a savage, with clumsy senses, and blind to a thousand things I should be able to see, deaf to a… Continue reading

Robber Flies

There is something about mimic insects that I just love, the way they think they are fooling everyone. If you watch a real bee, it is always working, zipping from blossom to blossom,… Continue reading

April 2017 on the Farm

We are having a lovely spring with a long period of cool weather.  We still have lots of butterflies around, the dewberries are already ripening, and a few bumble bees are showing up.… Continue reading

The Beauty of Little Brown Birds

This winter I have been very inspired by the work of nature writer Florence A. Merriam.  She was the first to write about observing birds alive in the field, rather than relying on… Continue reading

A Sharp Dressed Bug

I found this bug yesterday, on a very decrepit goatweed plant.  I have been reading The Practical Entomologist by Rick Imes, and learning the basic insect orders, so I recognized that this is… Continue reading

Dinner!

Feast issues in the animal world…  

Bird Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to yesterday’s quiz on out-dated bird names, as found in Obsolete English names of North American birds and their modern equivalents, a 1988 US Fish and Wildlife report. (Here… Continue reading