Creatures of the Deep

“It’s Electrifying!”

ESPatch Oct 25, 2011 10 comments

The spiraling seed heads on this miscanthus do look electrifying,

but the title of this post is in celebration of finally losing these:

For years now I have had two heavy gauge and extremely annoying extension cords running from a GFCI circuit on my back deck all the way down the side of my property to my ponds. Today this was all going to change,

Today I have the electricians coming!

Luckily for me when I first started to carve into the Patch to create planting beds, I laid conduit in preparation for this historic day. Here is the trench way back when:

Is that some grass I see?

A secondary trench was dug inside this one to take the pvc pipe down toward the end of the garden.

and here it is today all prepped and ready for the fixtures. These GFCI outlets come with a light fixture already attached to the top of them so I wasted no time in getting some eerie colors working in the Patch. Next step is to illuminate my post oak tree, more on this later.

Talking of eerie, the “brains” (as we commonly refer to them) have returned to the pond, This year in larger numbers than ever.

They really have an effective design…the “brain” provides flotation whilst assuring the the “brain-stem” roots always hover vertically allowing them to catch onto something and root. Ingenious.

Could this be a baby Walska?

Something even more disturbing:

While I was laying some mulch down I caught the unmistakable, unhealthy aroma of a stink horn…and judging from the intensity of the stench it was a bruised one…which is never a good thing at any time.

Eyes darted here and there, scouring the earth for the evil monstrosity…where was it…where was it?

Had I knelt on it? Tell me I hadn’t knelt on it. I knew it must be close to me. I looked behind me to see Kumo proudly holding it in the corner of his mouth like a rotting cigar. Before I could even get out of the planting bed [LEAVE IT] he had scampered over and dropped it in the middle of his favorite flattened feather grass. [LEAVE IT!] He paused, looked at me, then got on his back and started to roll around on it. [Oh for heavens sake].

Bad, stinky Kumo!

Moving On:

Temperatures are now very pleasant in Central Texas, just right for dangling your toes in the pond. My goldfish seem to think they are Garra rufa, exfoliating feet and toes to the delight and squeals of the halflings.

Brrr!

There is a hazard to dangling one’s toes in a fishpond though…

rogue strands of oxygen weed.

This week has seen a steady flow of migrating Monarch Butterflies filtering through the Patch,

their favorite ports of call are butterfly weed Asclepias tuberosa (naturally) and some blue mist flowers I have in my front garden.

Oxalis has reemerged in the cooler weather and is flowering once again.

A moment of zen under the Mexican weeping bamboo.

Talking of weeping, my pecan trees are currently engaged in yet another rather annoying activity…this time dropping sweet sugar-water all over the place.

My new barbeque pit!

In the late afternoon sun you can actually see the sticky rain falling.

This sparkling dandelion seed head was adhered to these leaves by the sugary substance.

Finally:

You didn’t think you could escape without seeing at least one very odd bug did you?

Common Bagworm

Psyche casta

Bagworm moths build houses from all kinds of materials. Each species designs and builds its own particular type of architecture, it is these structures that allow them to be identified. The Common Bagworm climbs on to plants and trees, but harvests wood from houses and sheds as well.

Inspirational sketch of the week:

http://www.morstudio.co/projects/entries/?id=5

Stay Tuned for:

“Little Monsters”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Counting Sheep”

ESPatch Oct 2, 2011 13 comments

agave parryi truncata

Still no rain, lots of dust, and a summer cold for me…there, moaning all done for this week’s post.

This sad little gulf coast toad looks exactly how I feel at this point in the drought, I gave him a good dowsing with the watering can and quickly got him into some shade. I have been noticing quite a few dead toads around lately. I think the damp shady places that they rely on during the day have, like everything else,

turned to dust under the death rays.

WARNING…WARNING…

…never attempt to extract giant timber bamboo unless under the supervision of an adult.

I have been putting this task off since last winter when this huge giant timber bamboo got hammered by our hard freezes. Although it was pushing up new culms I was not prepared to go through this mess again. No, there was only one thing for it.

This monster almost got the better of me, and I am very determined when it comes to extracting plants that need to be extracted.

It was the most stubborn root-ball I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I started to work around it with my heaviest pointed shovel but I could get no movement out of it at all, it was like concrete, it was horrible. As the pace and the sweat quickened, the cut culms began to look more and more like octopus suckers, clinging to the soil…pick axe, rockbar, pick axe, shovel and then naturally…

Snap! The force and speed of this breakage had me pirouetting out over the cut culms, which in-turn had me stumbling uncontrollably (zombie-like) into the adjacent hoja santa plants which were already quite unhappy.

Shovel #2.

Half an our later and lots of other creaking from shovel #2 and I finally heard some popping, music to my ears…I had beached the whale.

Just what I need, another bare patch in the patch.

Moving along:

Texas sage is once again offering up more false promises or rain.

and the inland sea oats are now in full fall color.

Celosia is pretty scarce in the Patch this year, most of it just wilted away like greens in a warm salad, this stand is my final hope for seeds this fall. These plants have been receiving supplemental water from my neighbor who is working to keep his struggling post oak alive.

I did notice a big change in the light quality this week, I think the summer (if not the drought) is finally fading behind us…and good riddance.

Here are a couple of gross things to ponder…

relax, this one does not seek shelter in houses. This is a female

Arenivaga

(arena meaning sand and vagus meaning wandering)

It is a genus of sand cockroaches, what a primordial looking creature…brrr.

And this next one was taken on an iPhone by my wife:

Scutigera coleoptrata

or a house centipede.

They are secretive,very odd looking and move with strange darting motions, and because of this homeowners typically fear the house centipede. Should you come across this very shy creature you might very well be inclined to immediately take your slipper to it, but these are actually beneficial in your home since they rid you of other pests like spiders,bedbugs,termites,cockroaches silverfish,firebrats,carpet beetle larvae ants and other household arthropods.

I found this pest lurking under the bed,

Kuminus Fangstratus

a vicious nocturnal creature.

Finally:

Apart from the Texas Sages, oleander and my mist flowers are about the only thing that are both blooming and still looking good, talk about plants that can weather the storm (or in this case the lack of it).

These Poecilognathus – a kind of bee fly (Diptera: Bombyliidae) covered the pale blue blooms. (Thanks for the ID meredee)

As there is not much to do in the garden but wait, (and cut down dead bamboo). I decided this week to give my own pathways a quick replenishment of the golden soil.

I do this every few years as the granite degrades and packs down.

After a hard day’s work there is nothing better than playing the smurfs next to her now sleepy Kuminus Fangstratus.

Inspirational image of the week:

Car Part Sculptor by James Corbett.

James Corbett is a renowned eco friendly artist and is known to create awesome sculpture from waste auto parts.

http://www.jamescorbettart.com/default.html