Bugfest at 10 p.m.

Time for another set of photos inspired by my camera. Yesterday was a slugfest. Today is a bugfest. But don’t worry. They’re only pictures!

First up is a pine white butterfly (Neophasia menapia), as seen at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. This lovely creature, also known as the pine butterfly, feeds on the needles of pine and certain fir trees when it is a caterpillar, and on nectar as an adult. This butterfly is sampling some butterfly milkweed nectar at the moment.

Next, we have another butterfly, photographed in a quiet park in Tucson, Arizona on a bright, sunny day. This one has a long name: Ministryomon janevicroy. It’s perched on an upright prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera, or Mexican hat). The Ministryomon janevicroy gets its name from the spouse (Jane Vicroy Scott) of its discoverer, Jeffrey Glassberg. I think this is my favorite butterfly because it’s so powdery white, with thin, orange, wavy lines. Its most unique feature is its OLIVE GREEN EYES. If you zoom in, you can probably see them.

Working our way from pretty to a little bit scary, we have this little bee. Or is it a wasp? I’m not sure. It’s feeding on an Echinacea flower, which is in the daisy family. You can just scroll right past it if you have a fear of bees.

And you might want to scroll past the next one, too. In fact, I recommend it. It’s a horse lubber grasshopper (Taeniopoda eques). Believe it or not, I was able to take this photo up close without getting (too) grossed out. There were four or five of these big lugs, or should I say lubbers, hopping around on my fairy duster plant one day (again, in Tucson), so I did what every dedicated photographer does when they see a huge, disgusting insect: grab their camera and snap away. Then they yell “Ewww” and run screaming into the house. At least that’s what I did.

I enjoy taking pictures of butterflies and then identifying them via Google. It’s not that hard. You just have to be persistent. It’s not like identifying birds, which are hard to photograph in the first place, and then have so many variations within species. At least that’s been my experience.

On the other hand, I’m not wild about staring at pictures of insects for very long, but that’s just me.

The above pictures were taken some years back. Now, with my newer camera and a bit more free time, I’m hoping to capture better butterfly pictures in the future (and probably no more insects, if I can help it, except maybe a dragonfly … or a caterpillar … but no more horse lubbers, I promise!). All of that will have to wait, though. It’s currently 33 degrees out where I live now, and snow is in the forecast.

I think I’ll stick to indoor photography for the next three or four months. Then maybe I’ll start bugging people with pictures of bugs again.

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This is post #17 of the month-long challenge known as #NaBloPoMo or #NanoPoblano. To follow my blog, please click below where it says “Follow loristory.”

And, to read more of the NanoPoblano posts written by the supportive blogging group “Cheer Peppers,” click the image below.

Featured image by ArtsyBee @ pixabay.com

Zooming and Blooming

Today’s post is about Zooming (video conferencing with my kids) and Blooming (photos I took about a month ago).

I haven’t been outside with my camera for several weeks, for fear of encountering someone on the trail who might sneeze on me. That actually happened to a friend of mine. Maybe my next batch of photos will be of the still life variety, taken indoors.

Let’s see … I could artfully arrange that pile of work folders that’s sitting on a stool in my living room. I might create a colorful collage from the pile of fabric rectangles stacked up next to my sewing machine. Or perhaps the world is ready for a sculpture I’ve created out of my pile of dirty laundry — the laundry I’m hesitant to do in the community laundry room. Then there’s my dwindling pile of toilet paper rolls … I really had better photograph it before it’s gone.

I’m doing okay, though. I just had a fun three-way video chat with my daughters. Tomorrow is the older one’s 40th birthday, so we celebrated by using Zoom. After the initially unsuccessful attempt at connecting, there we all finally were on the screen, looking like a pared-down version of the Brady Bunch (without the makeup, weird hairdos, or fake smiles). Well, in my case, I had put on a touch of makeup. They may have, too, but I couldn’t tell because they always look beautiful to me.

It wasn’t exactly the birthday party my daughter would have wanted, but it definitely made my day. I got to see with my own eyes how they’ve been coping during the pandemic, and it was reassuring. They even hilariously modeled their new masks, which they’ve made by cutting up the many pairs of leggings that they own, and making holes in them to place over their ears. It’s genius!

As always, they made me laugh, demonstrating how the stretchiness of the masks enables the wearer to quickly change them into long earrings, headbands, or a clever way to hide a double chin.

It was also a chance for me to visit with my grandsons. The 4-year-old (who tells his parents every day that he’s “so sick of the coronavirus”) said “I love you” (unprompted) and the almost 1-year-old smiled and waved and blew me an almost-kiss, touching his open palm to his mouth and holding it there for about 20 seconds. I have to say, it might have been one of the longest kisses I’ve ever received. It was definitely one of the best, anyway.

I hope you enjoy these photos of budding life and the promise of spring.

 

 

 

Oh Bee Hive!

For the past several months, I’ve been taking a yoga class. Today’s class was especially relaxing. We always start and end with shavasana, which involves lying down on a yoga mat. It doesn’t get any gentler than that.

In between the two shavasanas, we do some mild stretching, yawning, twisting, rocking, and balancing … nothing difficult. I go there for the relaxation factor. It’s literally the most relaxing part of my whole week, including the parts of my week while I’m asleep.

Today we did something at the end of class, during shavasana, that was so enjoyable for me that I wanted to share it with you. It was a guided observation that went something like this:

“Imagine yourself holding a mortar in your left hand, and a pestle in your right hand.

Now imagine everything that makes you sick or causes you pain dropping into your mortar, pebble by pebble.

Now take your right hand and grind your pebbles into a fine dust.

Now blow the dust away. Let it disappear.

Now imagine that every cell in your body is being filled up with a beautiful golden light.

Let the light warm you and envelop you. Enjoy your beautiful golden light.

(After a minute or two of enjoying the sensations created by our imaginations, we continued.)

Now release the light into the atmosphere. Just let it gently fade away.”

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I’ve experienced relaxation exercises before, but never like this. This one was special for me. I think it was because it began with the image of something very tangible: a mortar and pestle that I could hold in my hands. The directions were very specific. Mortar in left hand, pestle in right. Grind, grind, grind. Blow. Pouff! Gone.

And then, cells. Lots of them. And warm golden light. All very physical, very real to me. I imagined myself as a beehive.

 

I really liked this exercise. Grinding the pebbles into dust made me feel strong. Blowing them away gave me a sense of relief. Then each cell in my body filling up with warm, golden honey made me feel like I glowed. I think my head was even buzzing.

I didn’t want to release the light, but I knew I couldn’t lie there in shavasana forever, so I came back to reality. But even after I had done so, some of the energy of the golden light remained. I felt calm and energized at the same time.

I thought it was a very effective imagery exercise, and I just wanted to share it with you.