Who Would Have Ever Thought...

...we'd be so interested in the life and times of a single praying mantis? Not me. This weirdly beautiful alien-looking creature showed up in late September and took up residence in the yard. First it was on the sun-netting (you've seen that photo twice!). Then it moved on to the sunflowers. There it has stayed for more than a month.
The other praying mantises died, the one on our screen door (a six-week resident), the one on our deck chair (a four-week resident), gone. Well actually their bodies are still around, but they've been dead for more than a week. I thought that meant this brown beauty would die as well, fall to the ground in heap, and be a snack for the ants.
But it stayed around, and as long as it was still here, I checked in on it every few days. There is nothing quite like having a praying mantis turn its triangular head and stare those other-worldly eyes at you. I always say hello, it always gives me the cold shoulder. If it could talk, I know it would say, "Get out of here, you crazy human. Do I ever bug you? Ever?" I don't really get close, but it notices me anyway. Oh well, I guess that's what it gets for showing up and staying here so close to the house.


And not only didn't it die, it stayed incredibly robust and healthy. It had a good appetite, and there have been plenty of bees and ants for it to munch on. The benefit of checking in regularly yielded this video (15 seconds of a bee being eaten).
When the sunflower the mantis had been on finally turned brown and dried out, it moved on to another larger, fresher sunflower. There it met a friend. They stayed like this for several hours on Friday. Saturday morning, she was still there, but the male was gone. Did she eat him? I wish we could answer that, but we don't really know.

Now we're hoping for a fantastic brood at some point. All the websites I've checked have various opinions about praying mantis life cycles, so your guess is as good as mine when the babies will hatch out. I hope they stick around and take up residence in next year's sunflowers.

In other news: Monday is Roger's last day of chemo until November 16th! He's quite happy about that. The end of therapy is definitely a bit rougher than the beginning, but he's incredibly resilient.

Bonsai is doing very well. I won't go into the details of his daily excretions, but will say he's become very much like a normal kitty cat. On Saturday a stray dog, wandering on the other side of the fence, scared him. Bonsai ran into the house, past us at the dinner table and into the guest bedroom. I went out to see who had chased him, saw the Australian Shepherd and told it to go home. It ran. I went into the room to tell Bonnie that he was safe; he puffed up and swaggered out of that room, moving his shoulder like he was ready for a fight. Hah! We knew he was feeling better!

This post is number 1100! We thank you so much for reading us and sharing your thoughts, concerns, love, and friendship. We hope we have always reciprocated in kind.

Leaf Frogs and Other Things

I've posted most of these photos (not this sunflower and praying mantis, though!) on Facebook, but I really wanted our blogging friends (who are not on Facebook) to see this stuff too. Sometimes I think we should just do all our posting here, and then link to it there. I find the whole dual existence a bit disconcerting. I think blogging requires more thought than Facebook, and I guess most of the time I really don't feel like thinking. The randomness of status updates and idle chatter there suit my desire to mostly say nothing.
Still, things are happening here everyday. Roger is on day 11 (of 14) of his second (of eight) rounds of chemo and doing fantastically well. We are sincerely and seriously grateful everyday that he feels so good. He's been busy planning where to put the sauna and starting the online search for a good sauna heater. We need that completed before winter hits, but the weather has been so incredibly excellent that winter seems like a thing so distant it's hard to conceive of it as real.
These little Pacific Tree Frogs have really caught our attention lately. We like heading down to the pond just to see in what little secret hideaway spot we're going to find them next. It's always a delight to notice their beautiful striped eyes peeking at us from some crazy, unexpected place. These guys are really tiny things. Their littleness cannot be conveyed in photos, and I just don't think they'll tolerate a ruler for comparison. Roger says they're about a half inch.
It's hard to imagine that it's been only six months since we moved into our house. We are watching the sun and trying to guess just how low behind the lanky tall pines it will be on solstice. Our raised beds are planted, and we are dreaming of kale, chard, onions and garlic. We laugh about how happy such a future makes us. We are simply giddy about greens and frogs; sunflowers and praying mantis; and life is good.