Eat Prey Love

I haven't posted nature photos for a good long while.  After I figured out the macro setting on the point & shoot and established a totally organic garden and suburban ecosystem, I joyfully documented the bugs in my yard.  But after a while, the images didn't seem like anything new.  I think because I am a human it is difficult for me to perceive the differences that distinguish one individual paper wasp (for instance) from another.

But things happen in the world of bugs.  The whole circle of life unfolds every season among the flowers.  Sometimes I see it.  Warning:  if you are disturbed by the gritty reality of nature, you might not care for these pictures.  

mating mantids; the female has eaten the head of the male

preying mantis eating a monarch butterfly

green lynx spider guarding egg sac soon after laying eggs  

newly hatched green lynx spiders

Thoughts?

I don't know how long, but I'm sure it has been quite a while since I showed pictures of my yard.  But no worries.  The yard has not gone to wreck and ruin.  My method of gardening is mainly benign neglect.  I have some professional gardening done by some truly lovely people who hate power tools and plush lawns and square bushes as much as I do.  They may think I'm a little nuts about the bugs and birds, but at very least they act like they understand me.  I spend a little time myself puttering around the yard, trimming and pulling.  But mainly, I just water a little and neglect.  Since I love wilderness even more than gardens, it seems the best way to go.  Not to mention, it's kind of effortless.  Plants just show up in the yard, carried by birds or the breeze.  Sometimes they turn into wonderful things.  In this way, I've acquired a fig tree, two oaks, several sunflowers, tomatoes, night-blooming jasmine, and all manner of grasses.  And just recently, this.

A couple of  people and I made a bet on what we thought it was.  I said a melon.  They said, respectively, a sycamore tree and a passion vine.  I'm fairly certain they are wrong and  I'm right, but I'm interested in other ideas.  There may be a prize for the correct answer - possibly some of the bounty of the plant, whenever and whatever that may be.
Here's another nice thing that happens in my yard.

The Butterfly Ranch

In a few short years, my milkweed (which I bought in a three inch pot at a Huntington Library plant sale) has spread throughout my garden, as, being a weed, it is wont to do.  If you plant milkweed, monarch butterflies will come.  The population has increased each year, so the striped caterpillars covered the plants for weeks in the fall.  The plants are close to defoliated now, but where you can find leaves, buds and seedpods, there are still caterpillars.  I stopped counting the chrysalises when I got to 50.  And the monarchs aren't my only butterflies.  I have lots of passion vine, which is the host plant for the gulf fritillary.  The other butterflies I see include skippers, blues, giant swallowtails, tiger swallowtails, sulphers and painted ladies.  I've had rare sightings of mourning cloaks and red admirals and something kind of small that I can't identify.  I have plans to plants anise, coneflower, lantana, and cabbage.  I will be covered in butterflies.  Happy new year, blog readers.  May you too be covered in butterflies or whatever your heart desires.

Parades

I select the places I (or sometimes we) paint several weeks in advance. I do that because it's easier. I used to put more thought into the schedule - to try to have some rhyme, reason or theme, and try to select places near or at where interesting things were happening. Nowadays it's kind of random, so I usually find myself on the opposite side of the metropolitan area from where I might want to be. But once in a while, I collide with serendipity.

I painted the Tournament House on Saturday, and traveled from there across Pasadena to the Doo Dah Parade. If you don't know, the Tournament House (which I still know as the Wrigley Mansion) is the headquarters of the Tournament of Roses. The Tournament of Roses is the organization that brings you the Rose Parade, an extremely traditional, highly produced, and somewhat rigid parade down Colorado Boulevard of marching bands, flower-decked floats, equestrians, beauties, and luminaries every January 1 (or January 2 should the 1st fall on a Sunday.) The Doo Dah parade was born on a Sunday to poke fun at the Rose Parade; it is sort of a counter-culture irreverent free-for-all. The Rose Parade and the Doo Dah Parade are two different faces of Pasadena. They are both wonderful and exuberant and worth watching. The Tournament House was quiet and lovely on Saturday. I had not taken in the gardens before, but I'm sure I will again.

The painting was smaller and quicker, and I made some mistakes, but I'm trying to convince myself there's a charming whimsey to its wonkiness. Because I'm not completely proud of it, I'm sharing my favorite photos from Saturday. There is an excellent shadow from the Tournament House and the wonderful contraption that brought up the rear of the Doo Dah Parade.

Technology and Nature

I went to paint at Cal Tech today, but I forgot something to paint on. Arguably, one could paint on just about anything, but I didn't. I took some photos and notes and painted later at home. Not before I walked around and took dozens of pictures.
I took quite a few pictures of this beautiful egret that was fishing for food in some pools. It was not bothered by me.

And I was quite enamored with its white feathers and yellow feet.

Then I noticed this big silent bullfrog


Finally, I noticed this: a bit beaten up by a lawnmower,but still a four leaf clover. I didn't pick it. No reason to press my luck.

Can This Be Winter?

When I said it was a beautiful day at Arlington Garden, this is what I'm talking about. It's nowhere near spring, and yet a hundred different things are blooming. Fruit of the prickly pear cactus.


These seed pods are on one of Yoko Ono's wishing trees. I don't have any idea what became of the wishes, but the trees live on at Arlington Garden. I remember a time when I thought Yoko Ono was not a real artist, but was an opportunistic selfish woman who broke up the Beatles and took John for herself. With more mature eyes, I can see how perfect Yoko was for John; how they exemplified the very best of love, nurturing what was truest and most beautiful in one another. That's a good wish.

After Rain

Nothing sparkles quite like a freshly washed garden.

Life Continues

Seen on a leaf of the pumpkin vine: a pair of gulf fritillaries, ensuring another generation.

Color and Texture

A fall leaf
A spectacular cabbage, and

A remarkable pattern seen on the dead part of an oak tree

Bug Collection

I've always liked bugs. I never ever pinned a bug to board. A few times I've kept them alive in jars, but mostly now I just like to watch them go about their business in the garden.

This is the larva of a gulf fritillary feeding on the passion vine on my back fence.

A monarch, a prince of a caterpillar, munching milkweed along with a little milkweed aphid.

A large milkweed bug; they feed on the seeds of the milkweed.

A beautiful praying mantis girl on a double delight rose. Color untouched.

One of the heirloom roses. You can imagine how big the flower is to support two huge green bugs who are able to ignore one another.
It's Macro Monday here and at Lisa's Chaos.

Higher Mountains

This painting dates back all the way to last Saturday, but my computer was out of commission and I had no way to bring it to you. This is Loma Alta Park, a Los Angeles County Park in Altadena. Loma Alta means high hill, and it's named, I believe, for it's elevation. There are spectacular views from the park of both the mountains and the Los Angeles basin. There are shaded picnic areas, great trees, horseshoes and an outdoor theater. In my late childhood, I left home for a day and walked to Loma Alta Park. It's always a good place end up.

Here's some of my favorite photographs from the visit. Especially the crow. Crows are great. So are maple leaves. Can you think of a better leaf?

My Pumpkin Patch

Ask me about my pumpkins. Here's a baby picture.


Where pumpkins come from. My favorite.

And these should give you a sense of the scale.


Me and my pumpkins.

Nature Park

I painted today at the South Pasadena Woodland and Wildlife Park, which is commonly known as the Nature Park, even by it's primary caregivers. It was pretty hot this morning, and I almost can't imagine what fall feels like. Other than evenings and the crunch of an apple. The painting is nothing to brag about. Anything that is lovely in the painting was probably lovelier in the world. I did turn the fall color up a notch, in a bit of wishful thinking.

Here is fairly satisfactory photograph of a spiderweb. The web was huge and well lit. I didn't see the spider. I did see some wildlife at the nature park, including a heron, mallard ducks, several lizards and some butterflies. But I'm not much good at photographing moving things.


The jimson weed was about my speed.

Now and then

Found in my garden

A seven-legged male green lynx spider on the Tahitian Sunset rose

A pear blossom from several weeks ago. Poignant, because none of the pears set, and the whole tree is having a bit of a struggle now. It's tough out there, sometimes, for spiders, for trees, for all of us.

They're for Macro Monday, but I can't seem to add hyperlinks these days.

Macro Miscellany

A young conifer beetle on a passion fruit

A mushroom on the lawn of Eliot Middle School

Roses, Double Delight

Fly on rose. They pollinate flowers too and have some beautiful colors, yet they lack the cachet of butterflies.

Figeater Beetles

This summer, figeater beetles have descended on my yard. I don't even have a fig tree, but there's one next door. One morning I saw two of the beetles making sweet beetle love in my bougainvillea. Then a third beetle arrived.

The beetles are large, and they make a loud buzzing sound as they fly. They are a little alarming, but only harmful if you mind sharing your figs. The iridescence on their undersides is beautiful.