Thankful Sunday

I am thankful for remote access.

Ward often has weekend work but he can usually do it at home. He may be busy, but he is here for a quick question or a smile as I walk by. For that, I am thankful.

Where's A-Z?

I think I need the A-Z challenge back. I seem to lack motivation for posting on my blog when left to my own devices. But today, I am determined to post. I can't seem to come up with anything that captures my fancy, so I will just go with what doesn't capture my fancy. And right now, that seems to be a stream of consciousness of what I did yesterday.

Yesterday, I got great satisfaction out of finally lowering our cable/phone/internet bill. Should have done it sooner. Most of our features were out of date, so they were upgraded to better service for a lower cost--$25/month lower. We lost a few channels, but I didn't even know that most of them existed. And for once during a call with Verizon, they didn't try to upgrade our service and add a bunch of premium channels. Yea!

However, that phone call lasted much longer than I expected it to, so I wasn't able to get in the errands I had planned before work. So they will have to happen this morning, unless of course, I spend too much time here at the computer.

This picture has nothing to do with this post except that I ran onto it while I was writing it. It is the cats in their playground otherwise known as Wally's room years ago.

Went to work and am back home now.

I was able to accomplish the errands before work. I mailed some letters, picked up a prescription, and had a blood test. And speaking of blood tests, does anyone else have hard-to-hit, rolling, slow bleeding veins? They seem to run in my family and having a blood draw never easy for anyone involved. However a few years ago, after a couple of sticks, the nurse said, "Always point to this spot right here for anyone doing this." And it has been smooth sailing ever since. It made me wonder why it took all of those years of multiple sticks each time for someone to figure it out.

One time after four tries and no luck, the nurse called the doctor in. The doctor tried another time without success and I started to cry. The the doctor-with-no-bedside-manner asked what I was crying for and said that my husband didn't cry when he was stuck. Well, first of all, she shouldn't have been discussing another patient with me even if he was my husband, and next my husband's veins jump out and say pick me anytime he has a blood test. He has never had a problem.  In fact, when he gives blood, they call him a good bleeder. We never went back to that doctor and I'm can laugh about it all these years later, can't you tell?

Tonight I have a book club meeting where we bring our nominations for what we want to read next year. We vote on them next month. The book we are discussing tonight is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I know that the book has been quite popular over the last couple of years and I can see why. It's just my style. It will be interesting to hear what others think about it.

Until next time...

A Second Look--May 27, 2015

This is the perfect time of the year outside. The mornings are cool and the afternoons are warm. Everything is newly green and lush with a different kind of flower popping out every week. The stars of the flower show this week are the iris.

The baby bluebirds almost look like real birds now. In one short week, they have gone from featherless creatures that were all eyes and mouths to little birds with some tiny feathers, and eyes that are proportionate to their heads. The mother is very attentive to them. She seems either to be feeding them or standing sentry on top of their box. I was lucky to take a sneak peek at the babies when I caught her away.

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Siberian Iris

Bearded iris

Bearded iris

I think the cold winter we had was hard on the squirrels because I'm not seeing as many as last year.

Most of the bleeding heart have already gone to seed, so it was a pleasant surprise to find these.

The mother bluebird guarding the box her babies are in.

All four babies appear to be developing well.

This what they looked like just one short week ago!

Thankful Sunday--May 24, 2015

I am thankful for the beautiful life of Allison.

I first met Allison, when she was a young teen, on a trip with Ward to meet his family. She seemed quiet at times around her three older, boisterous brothers, but could definitely hold her own. In fact, later she would say that some of the wrestling moves she learned from them came in handy more than one time during a date.

She was accomplished in many ways. She had a degree in both English and Physics which lead to her career as a technical writer and prolific author. However, her greatest accomplishment was the life she created with her husband and son. They were a close family who enjoyed many things together including Morris Dancing and the science fiction world. From those activities, they made a large circle of friends. This circle was never more evident than during the last two years of her life and her battle with cancer.

When Allison was first diagnosed, friends rallied around with a can do attitude  They were going to help her beat the impossible statistics and outsmart this illness. But after a while, it was evident that that was not going to happen. And when things got difficult and depressing, they were still around.

That's one of the things that I found amazing about the whole situation. Instead of avoiding her, they flocked to Allison. That's because Allison, with the incredible support of her husband, continued to celebrate life every day and encouraged all of those around her to do the same thing. Even when her body was betraying her, she kept going. There were dances and concerts and laser shows and block parties and museums and movies and snow angels and nature walks and festivals and parties and pig roasts and church and the list goes on and on of what she and friends and family did together to celebrate life every day. People were still around because they wanted to be a part of this positive energy.

During her illness, Allison developed a new word, ETHOOL which means, Enjoy The Heck Our Of Life. Buttons and banners were made and it is now a part of many people's every day language including mine. Allison wrote most of the notice that was going to be posted upon her passing. Unfortunately, Friday it was time to share that post. She told her husband she wanted to make them smile and she did.  Here is its final line:

 She is at peace and beginning to ETHOOTAL!  (Enjoying The Heck Out Of The After Life.)

A Second Look Update--Bees

What are those bees doing?

I admit that as far as bees go, I have very limited knowledge. To me anything that buzzes and looks like it could sting is a bee. But as most of you know, not everything that looks like that is a bee. Some of them are wasps. And no matter how many times I try to learn the differences between the two, I don't remember for very long what they are. So here it goes again.

A papery, yellow jacket wasp's nest that I found
in the ground while I was weeding.
Yes, I did get stung.

Bees and wasps come from the same Order, Hymenoptera. After that, they differ in their Family, Genus, and Species. (Remember the taxonomy classifications for biology?) If you can get close enough to look at them, there are some physical differences. Bees are hairy and wasps are smooth. Bees usually have a fatter and rounder abdomen than wasps. And if the buzzing insect is chasing you, it's probably a wasp. Wasps are more aggressive than bees. Find a papery nest in the ground, it belongs to a wasp. Bees make waxy hives. All bees are social insects, but not all wasps are. Some are solitary. Bees eat nectar, but wasps usually eat other insects, unless of course you have a can of soda around. And the list goes on. There are over 20,000 different species of bees and over 100,000 different kinds of wasps, so if I'm playing the odds, wasp should be my first guess when I'm trying to identify one or the other.

Even though I refamiliarized myself with some basic bee and wasp knowledge, I was at a loss to explain what I saw about a month ago during a Second Look. I saw a smaller bee/wasp attach itself to the bottom of a different kind of bee/wasp. So it was time to go for help. The first place I turned was my bee expert--a friend who raises honey bees. I sent her pictures and asked her what was going on. She had no idea, so she sent them to her local county extension agent. The extension agent had no idea what was going on either so she sent them to an entomology professor she knew at large university. He didn't have a good answer, so he showed the pictures to all of his colleagues. And none of them could give a good explanation of what they saw. 

Smaller bee with larger ones to the side

Smaller bee attached to the bottom of larger bee

However, here is the information that they did provide for what they saw in the pictures above.

The responses I have gathered from my colleagues agree that this type of interaction with carpenter bees* is unusual. Bees sometimes get in territorial disputes, but this doesn't appear to be the case in the pic.  Everyone agrees that the bee on the carpenter bee is probably not doing any harm.  Based on what they could tell from the photo, and the host plant they are on, they believe the other bee is in the genus Osmia (e.g. blue orchard bee).  Why they are interacting like this is unclear. 

So I didn't get a definitive answer to my question, but I did learn a lot while looking for an answer. Now, lets see how long I can remember it. :)

*I called the big bees bumble bees in the original post, but they're not. They are carpenter bees as evidenced by their smooth abdomen. If they had been bumble bees, this area would have been hairy. Live and learn.

But Wait There's More:
--Did you know that male bees don't sting? The stinger is a modification of an ovipositer--an egg layer, so male bees have never had one to modify. This may be common knowledge for those of you in the know, but it was fascinating news to me.

--A good paint job is a good deterrent to the carpenter bees.


Sources:
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Bee_vs_Wasp

http://animals.pawnation.com/there-kind-bee-doesnt-sting-10377.html

http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/insects/bees/

And some others that disappeared when my computer crashed. :(