Boat-backed Ground Beetle and Other Nature Therapy

Fueled up for a stressful week with fall colors, flowers, and feathers. And met a new beetle.  The Boat-backed Ground Beetle, Scaphimotus spp. is described as 5/8-7/8", black with violet or coppery highlights. It eats slugs and snails. It was coppery going one direction, and purple headed a different way. 

Limit media consumption, go outside, and drink plenty of fluids!

© 2014-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Working on our balance

Took a short walk on the Rowlett Creek Trail Monday after photographing the bluebonnets in full splendor near the Oak Point Amphitheater on Spring Creek. The trail was muddy, but the sun was restorative.

Coming around a bend, the trail was blocked by a woman  standing on a big tree root. Not just standing, but actively balancing on the root. She was barefoot with red toenails, and had white earbuds. Her hands were out, palms down, in that balancing position.  Was someone taking a photo? I couldn't see around the tree, and didn't want to get too close as neither of us wore a mask.  The toenails were an odd detail on a chilly morning. Finally I asked if someone was taking her picture, and could I sneak around. "Oh," she said, "I didn't mean to scare you. I'm balancing."

She went on to say she has poor balance, so whenever she comes to this particular root she stands on it as a strengthening exercise. It made as much sense as much of my physical therapy last summer. I did the friendly, not-too-close regal pandemic wave with nod, smiled, wished her a good day, and went on down the trail.

But really, aren't we all just working on our balance right now?

© 2014-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Big N, little n, FX nature

Recently a  coworker took time off to go swim with sharks in an aquarium. Today I spent time staring at schools of tiny fish in the lowering waters of the Heard Nature Center wetlands, at mating Eastern pondhawks, at Mr. Big Ribbit, and listened to a warbler sing about the inch worm it ate for lunch. We each have our own bucket list, I guess.

Inchworm still in its beak.

Eastern pondhawks ensuring the future of their species.

Last evening leaving work I drove past a protest march outside a French restaurant. The marchers carried placards demanding an end to torture of ducks and geese. I don't know much about foie gras, but I was offered a sample of gourmet hummus on a pretzel stick at the grocery store today. A radio opinionator carrying on about Scott Pruitt's disregard of climate science suggested letting hungry polar bears loose in Congress. Congress gras. Congress hummus.

Walking the boardwalk over the wetlands an older couple was torturing two granddaughters with forced exposure to nature. The girls could not spy the warbler, or hear it singing over their own exasperated sighs. "You must learn to love nature," the grandparents kept saying in between phone selfies. March on! Or as the girls thought, "YRMLM."

Passing the spot where I saw snakes* on a recent visit to the Heard I found instead the biggest frog I've ever seen outside of captivity. It was bigger than a 24 oz. bucket of probiotic Greek yogurt.

*4/22/18

© 2014-2018 Nancy L. Ruder

More mud lessons

 Intruder detected! Intruder detected! Activate crawdad defense protocol!

  

Celebrating the first jacket day of the season with a walk at Oak Point. The lake water was nearly up to sidewalk level at the dam.

The zip line staff, having a slow day, were riding around in a golf cart removing crawdads from the paved trail. Don't squash that arthropod! They showed me all the babies hanging on to the mama crawdad's undercarriage.

 

 

Babies on board beneath the samurai tail sections.

The Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board provides an integrated curriculum to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography through the concept of crawdaddies, and meet all government required grade level objectives. I was in trouble after the kindergarten coloring page.

© 2014-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Scheduling little blocks for sanity

What fiendish genii created the shared Outlook calendar? Already juggling two job calendars that look like Duplo Does Tetris. I've been using Outlook for a full year now, but I forget all my coworkers can see appointments dubbed "Sanity Day Off", "Anniversary of Big Snake in Toy Box", or "Will There Be Bagels?"

On the good side, this was a "Mental Health Afternoon". I went out to Oak Point to see the interactive gizmos in the new Visitor Center, and took a walk in the drizzle. The light rain and gray sky fit my mindset, but the interactive map was impressive. The meeting rooms are very well designed for your next corporate or club event.

On the worried side, the water level is very low in the Oak Point lake. Yes, perhaps we will have flash flooding the next few days. Or maybe I'll sprout fuchsia feathery antlers while dropping little rectangular cells reserving sanity into my calendar. Or I might wear a colander on my head with sparkly pipe-cleaners attached.

Green and blue nature therapy has been seriously absent from my life lately. I need my compare and contrast slow observation rambles. 

The sprinkles were off and on this gray afternoon, but now the real showers have begun. Thunder and splashy traffic on the nearby busy street.

The colander is in the dishwasher, so that will have to wait for another block on the calendar.

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder