Cop Car's Beat

Hunky Husband’s [not reptile] amphibian buds

Monday afternoon, Hunky Husband checked our basement escape window for his "buds", several reptiles amphibians who grace us with their occasional presence - when the weather agrees with them. Unusually for this time of year, the weather agreed with a couple of HH's buds, on that occasion, so I'll give you the scoop. Looking back to see just what the weather really was like, Monday, I found a graphic that is chock full of information for anyone who cares to figure it all out. I'll just say that it was warm and damp. I had measured precipitation at 1.395" in our rain gage, total for Sunday & Monday (19th & 20th of November).

The first photo, below, includes the two critters, as pointed out by the yellow arrows. 

The next two photos allow each critter to bask in the spotlight.

ADDITION of 12/3/2023 - 11:23pm

Thanks to Stu Savory for pointing out my thoughtless error. Of course, frogs and toads are amphibians. What was I thinking? My error should have been obvious to me when Peggy mentioned snakes. Alas, I was no more alert when I read her welcome comment than when I wrote the posting. My apologies to all. (grumble, grumble Neither frogs nor toads have scales, for Pete's sake!)

As a reminder (to myself, since I am so in need of it):

ThoughtCo posts:

Britannica posts:

Amphibians

Amphibians are characterized by their ability to experience the best of both worlds in terms of living arrangements: they can inhabit both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Some species of amphibians have picked sides, however, and dwell exclusively in the water or on land. Today's amphibians include frogs and toads, newts and salamanders, and the wormlike amphibians known as caecilians.

 

In that posting are lovely photographs that immediately point out that, not only are HH's buds amphibians, but they are frogs, bullfrogs. No scales or rough skin on them.

 

Butterfly bush is living up to its name

There is a flurry of activity around our one, remaining, butterfly bush this morning.

The first photo shows a cluster of blossoms on the bush, at its finest. The second photo shows one of the butterflies that I call a Hackberry Butterfly since we have an abundance of Hackberry trees in our woods. That identification is subject to anyone's correction, thank you. The third photo shows a Fiery Skipper Butterfly, the identification of which is also open to correction. Most of the butterflies were Hackberries with just a couple of the skippers and one Monarch that flitted off before I could come inside to grab my phone, and return.

The milkweed in our mini meadow has shed its leaves, so there is nowhere for a Monarch to lay eggs in our yard. I noticed in pulling up the remainder of our dillweed plants the other day that there was one swallowtail caterpillar on one of the desiccated stalks. Sorry, little guy, but the deli is closed for the year.

Speaking of bushes (as in Butterfly Bush), I'll include a recent photo of the little Crepe Myrtle that Tom transplanted from the edge of the drive into the hole left by one of the daylily clumps that he had just dug up for Bev to plant in their yard. The Crepe Myrtle had dropped all of its leaves and blossoms and I had feared the worst. Fortunately, I continued to water it and it sent out new leaves. I hope it gets a good enough start to make it through the winter. Mental note to self: water the poor little thing throughout the winter and spring.

 

Such an exciting week

The most outstanding feature of this past week was the heat. In a comment to the next previous posting I noted that, "We reached 103, today. Expect to reach 103, 105, 102, 100, and 101 on succeeding days. Next week we are expected to have highs back in the high 80s." That was on Monday, August 31. As it turned out, our actual high temperatures during the succeeding days were 105, 105, 108, 108, and (unexpectedly) 95. Today started out at 72 and has been 85 for most of the day. For 10 of 11 days we exceeded 100 degrees F (on the off day we reached a mere 99). That really isn't bad for summer in Kansas, nor is it in contention for sympathy this year since Phoenix had a run of at least that long, when they reached over 110 degrees F.

It started thundering at about 4am, today, and proceeded to rain softly for the next few hours gifting us with a total of 0.92" of rain. I took advantage of the rain by backing our cars out of the garage to soak off the road grime. 

Note the small leaves on the concrete between the cars and the garage floor. As those small leaves were in abundant evidence completely around our house, this morning, one assumes that we had wind preceding the rain. It had been predicted to be as high as 60 or 70 mph, but whatever we may have had, it failed to waken me. The leaves seem to be from the tree in the front of our neighbor's yard.

Hunky Husband has been obsessing over the absence of his "little buds" - the frogs/toads that inhabit the window well outside our basement escape window. (Critters are confused, too. and Critters galore - mostly in the window well) HH also notices the absence of the baby birds that were raised on our front porch, but it has been long enough since the last clutch fledged that he no longer obsesses over them.

Hungry mouths on the front porch

Hunky Husband likes to keep track of what's going on in the miniature swing that hangs on our front porch - purposed for providing a good nesting site for birds, keeping them from trying to nest atop our wind chimes. This week is cool and cloudy in our area, so I didn't even glance at the swing as I went out to get the newspaper this morning. HH looked. He saw that baby birds were being fed out there! The whole family (kids from last year) of house finches joins in the task of raising youngsters. After this clutch fledges, they will help the next clutch. Papa gets in on the duty, too. There isn't enough light for me to be able to see much, but I did discern at least two hungry mouths up there.

Review of the Week - 10/29/2022

Cantaloupe - Saved from freezing

The day before our forecasted first hard freeze of the season, I removed the nine largest melons from our cantaloupe vines that had grown from green garbage that I had buried. They aren't very large and there isn't much flesh to them, but they are still good eating.

Mid-Term Elections - Hunky Husband and I voted. Our ballots are in the mail.

Rain - We've been in severe drought for several months. Unexpectedly, we received 1.43" of rain. Projected rain amount had been 0.25" or less. Wichita is still 5+ inches shy on rain for the year and they received only about 0.7" or 0.8" of rain this time. A couple of days later we received 0.17".

It doesn't get better than this! - Found at Bits and Pieces (4:19 minutes:seconds)

 

While we are dancing - not better, but shorter - also from Bits and Pieces (15 seconds)

Leaves - It's that raking time of year. For the past couple of years, HH has declined any leaf-raking assignments. (He used to help me with the raking.) In smallish batches, so as not to overwork my puny muscles, I spent a few days raking up the leaves blown onto our back lawn from the trees in the woods (south winds of up to 60+ miles/hour) and leaves on our front lawn from our soon-to-be-removed gingko that is (too) near the front of the house. HH then mowed/mulched the rest of the leaves in back after which I mowed/mulched the leaves in front. I did the front because we have multitudinous, multi-colored marker flags in the front lawn (in preparation for the installation of fiber-optic cabling). HH did not care to attempt the maze. As HH said when we were talking about mowing patterns, his pattern is "...a random walk pattern."

More Lawn Watering - Having had the irrigation system winterized one week ago, I shall need to spend the weekend watering in the fertilizer and broadleaf weed killer that was sprayed on, yesterday. It is forecasted that the winds will be under 15 miles/hour over the weekend, so it will be time consuming task but not frustrating.

Furnishings - I did get HH's treadmill into position in his workout room and I moved a table up from the basement, having decided to set up my backup computer in my upstairs den (in the space that had been occupied by the treadmill) rather than keeping it in the basement. The table is from a friend's garage sale in about 2005 ($12-$15, as I recall), which I made precious by having a beautiful burled-wood-patterned plastic laminate installed on the top. If you wish to see fine furniture, I suggest that you visit Stu's place to see his posting, Fehmarn furniture. [Note: I am having issues with links copied from Stu's website. Currently, the Fehmarn furniture posting may be accessed by following the "Stu's" link and scrolling down to below the beautiful butterflies.]

Hunky Husband's Hitchhiker

Hunky Husband mowed our lawn, this morning, then took a nap before lunch. As I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, HH walked in - with a hitchhiker on his shoulder. It didn't wish to hold still for its portrait, but I was able to get several good photos of the hitchhiker, which I'm calling a Walnut Caterpillar. As we have several large, old walnut trees in our woods (and a few small ones in our yard), this is not an unusual find for us. How it hid on HH for such a long time is beyond my ken. HH had no idea of its presence until I picked the caterpillar off of his shoulder.

I had seen a Walnut Caterpillar Moth clinging to the doorframe of the door into the house from the garage, early this morning, but it didn't occur to me to take a photo of it - and it is no longer there. I'll substitute a photo that I found at Texas A&M: Extension Entomology.

ADDITION of 8/30/2022 7:00am - more on Walnut Caterpillar

I took the time to dig a little deeper online and found the following photo on Kansas State University Research & Extension. I like the photo even though it isn't sharply focused because it shows a grouping of Walnut Caterpillars that includes younger and older specimens.

North Carolina State University has the most comprehensive set of relevant photos. Not only has it posted individual photos of younger and older specimens, but also the next photo showing a pupa.

A good resource that I found was . That's a mouthful! It may be accessed at Moth Photographers Group. Finding the resource surprised me. The only thing I ever learned at Mississippi State University was in a hands-on course in laying up composite materials - at their Advanced Composites Institute. (I'm the "no moustache" person next to the tall guy in the back row. We students were a scroungy lot, but the instructors wore ties!)

ADDITION of 8/30/2022 10:12am - on Stu's Oak Processionary caterpillars

Stu's caterpillars are interesting critters. Unlike our Walnut Caterpillars that, at least around our place are not numerous enough to constitute a real threat (thus, I turned loose the caterpillar that had latched onto HH), parts of England and Europe are home to too many Oak Processionary Caterpillars. I found the following photo and paragraphs at Wildlife Insight. 

Oak Processionary caterpillars

on 22 MAY 2020

Oak Processionary Moth caterpillars create amazing patterns when resting in large numbers on the trunks of oak trees. They’re also fascinating to watch when on the move, walking head to tail in a long processional line, hence their name.

However, these caterpillers [sic] have a darker side. They are a growing threat to oak trees as well as a potential health risk in parts of south east of [sic] England.

These were sighted on a tree trunk by Emily Kirt while taking a walk in Kingston upon Thames, Greater London.

The origins of Processionary moths in London are thought to be from eggs imported on timber from the continent where they are a common pest. Small numbers of moths also arrive annually along the south coast as migrants from other European countries such as The Netherlands and France.

As with other invasive pest species from abroad such as The Gypsy Moth and Box Moth caterpillar they seem to be on the increase and spreading in parts of southern England.

Other caterpillars can be seen in the Moth caterpillar galleries and Butterfly caterpillar galleries . Other hairy caterpillars can be seen in the Hairy caterpillar gallery.

If you ever wondered....

If you ever wondered what a House Finch's nest looks like after Mama Finch has raised three broods, this photo should show you. I'm cleaning up the little swing but will not re-hang it until next spring. Mama Finch deserves a rest.

The first nest that Mama & Papa Finch built is on the left in the photo. The second and third are on the right - stacked, which is more obvious if photo is enlarged.

A new butterfly

In Week in Review - July 16, 2022, I posted a photo of three black swallowtail caterpillars feasting on dill weed in our rose garden. Today, looking out our little bay window in the kitchen, I espied a female butterfly that had evidently emerged from the chrysalis of one of those caterpillars. Most of my photos were out of focus, but the best photo is below.

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ADDITION of 8/4/2022: Links to photos of other Lepidoptera posted by blog friends - 

    Photo of Atlas Moth (my identification - correct me if I'm wrong, please) Mine is bigger ! posted by Stu Savory

    Photo of a presumably Asian moth of some sort (identification solicited) Having a wonderful time posted by Liz Hinds

 

 

Week in Review - July 16, 2022

Old Friend

The most unexpected happening was hearing from an old friend, Dr J, with whom I worked in the mid-1980s. I've heard from him every few/several years since 2009 and I must say that, unfortunately, his is a tale of woe. (The link that I've given leads to an interview with him.) His education resulted in BS and MS in Physics and MS and PhD in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, his specialty being computational fluid dynamics (CFD). CFD is a highly regarded field but esoteric enough that it can lead to difficulties in staying employed. Dr J has been, basically, unemployed for some time. He has physical conditions that have led him to be wheelchair bound, living in the Puget Sound area.

Even back in the 1980s, Dr J labored under a dark star. He was just a youngster of 30 then who hired into the same company for which I worked, only to find that their need for a CFD specialist had evaporated. He was to have worked on one of the programs on which I was involved. As it happened, about that time I needed someone to deal with some scheduling software (this was the 1980s - software's being even less user friendly then). My job was putting together a USAF base plan for Edwards AFB. The scheduling assignment kept him gainfully useful to the company for a few weeks and Dr J's and my contact was rather spotty after that. 

Trimming Bushes

It is horrible giving bushes haircuts when they are being subjected to triple digit temperatures for an extended period of time, but other tasks took priority when the weather was a bit cooler. The bush that had gotten most out of hand was the Coppertina Nine Bark, one of two that I had planted behind the house in in 2015 (not, as it feels, in 2019!) The second bush survived but for one year or two. The next two photos show the "before" and "after" trimming views.

 

 

The next two photos show the three Crepe Myrtle bushes that I planted in 2002 - "before" and "after" a trim. What? You can't tell that I trimmed them? There's a good reason for that. The only trimming that I did was to remove the limbs bearing pink blossoms from among the limbs bearing white blossoms. I had bought a Dwarf Victor (on the right) at Hillside Nursery and the two "pink" standard-sized generic bushes from WalMart. The bush that is in the middle eventually proved to have been two roots in the same pot - one for white, the other for pink. I've been trying to kill out the pink for some years because I like the contrast of a white bush between the pink and cerise bushes.

The following two photos show "before" and "after" trimming of our three Little Devil Nine Bark bushes - planted at the same time as the Coppertina, above.

 

 

Dill & Insects

Our largest patch of Dill Weed has drawn female black swallowtails - more so than usual, this year. We have an abundance of caterpillars, and the blossoms draw all manner of insects - various flies and lacewings. The photos below are the best I could do. The caterpillars don't run about, but the flies and lacewings flit nervously, keeping me from focusing on them. (The sun reflecting off of the viewing screen doesn't help, either!) I can't identify the fleet of black specks in the photo on the left. I assume they are some sort of eggs.

Hummingbirds and Ants

Speaking of bugs: Below is a photo of the hummingbird feeder that I brought in after hanging a feeder with fresh nectar. Since hummingbirds feast on ants, I can't get upset that the ants are consuming some of the hummingbird nectar.

Tomatoes & Potatoes

I was at least a month late planting tomatoes, this year, so I've yet to find fruit even beginning to color up. The photo on the left, below, shows the bush with the fruit coming closest to being ready. It is an Early Girl. (I planted only three tomatoes, this year, the other two being Beefmasters.) On the right is a photo of our total potato crop for 2022. They came up from three different hills where I had planted green garbage. My dad planted potatoes on St Pat's Day nearly every year, but I've never planted potatoes intentionally.

 

 

 

 

We get to laugh at ourselves.

The other night, Hunky Husband and I were watching TV separately, as do we usually. I heard him coughing up a fit. Since it annoys me to have someone bother me while I'm having such a coughing spell, having a speck of pepper catch in my throat or some such, I listened carefully but did not rush in to see HH. I find that as long as I can hear the fit, breath is being had. Later in the evening, HH told me that he had coughed stuff up from his lungs, catching it in his handkerchief, and that he had rinsed it out in the sink, hanging it over the towel bar in his bathtub enclosure. He told me that he had coughed up blood. Would I please check that he'd gotten all of the blood rinsed out?

Coughing up blood is a whole 'nuther thing. Now I am concerned, but I don't really want to let on to HH and get him obsessing about it. I check his handkerchief and, finding a smear of pink, take it to my basement sink for rinsing. In rinsing, I note that there is more and more pink showing up as I rotate the handkerchief in my hands. There are grainy little dots of pink - only on one side of the cloth - each fact of which struck me as strange. Eventually I am satisfied that the handkerchief is clean and hang it on the edge of the "whites" laundry basket to dry.

I preceded HH to bed. As he was in his bathroom brushing his teeth, I lay in bed with my mind wondering. Eventually, my mind wandered over something to do with the watermelon that we had eaten as a late evening snack. Bingo! It was not blood that HH was coughing up, it was small specks of watermelon cellulose and juice. I feel so much better. HH and I got a good laugh at ourselves. The photo shows our next watermelon - on which we shall endeavor not to choke. It's in the bag that I used to carry it, the watermelon having been too large for me to otherwise manage while also carrying two smaller bags of groceries to my car.

 

Yesterday's visitor

I'm reading that as 21" from nose tip to tail tip.