“A Change of Scenery”

ESPatch Jul 10, 2014 6 comments

Dragonfly wings,

buried in the sand?

It could mean only one thing,

we were off on vacation,

and we had survived the “6 Harry Potters” worth of car-time to get there.

The 12 hour journey was accompanied by the repeatedly repeated phrases from the parental units trying desperately to hold it together…“If you do that again you will loose the iPad for one Harry, do you understand?” and at every gas station: “Did you go to the restroom…did you go to the restroom?“

And “stop that humming!”

followed by the final blow…

…”you have lost the iPad for a Harry”.

Oh yes, if it wasn’t for the sporadic in-car reading (courtesy of my wife) of the poaching exploits of

I think we all would have all permanently lost it.

We had arrived at Gulf Shores, Alabama.

They jumped out of the car and were on the beach before you could say sunscreen.

I was not far behind them with my fishing rod.

A couple of pompano on my second cast (really it was) caught the attention of this Great Blue Heron down the beach:

I released the fish back into the water but only one made it back to the deep, the other was gracefully harpooned by a formidable beak.

The heron never left my side after this.

It was like the evil penguin on Wallace & Gromit.

Always looming.

This Remora Shark Sucker fish did escape the beak. These funny looking fish have a sucker pad on top of their head that is used to attach themselves to Shark, Snapper, Cobia etc…they are cleaner fish.

If I had known this at the time I may have attached a couple of these fish to the seat-belt-smudged tattoo that ended up EVERYWHERE.

The tattoo apparently lasts a month!

Her hidden agenda at the beach naturally involved lots of these:

and precisely seven of these:

Time to get some refreshment at our favorite hangout…

Let me guess, something to do with Minecraft and American Girl Dolls?

Every so often a buzzer would sound and this would happen which was good as it was noticeably fading the tattoo smudges.

result Final day blues.

Thank you D&J, we had the best time.

We decided to break up the return journey and splurge with an evening in New Orleans at the

hotel-monteleone-new-orleans-hotel-french-quarter-entrance-732x428

In the heart of the French Quarter.

Lets just say it made a dramatic change to the Best Westerns we were accustomed to.

Jaws dropped entering the foyer, and off to the side was the amazing

hotel-monteleone-new-orleans-carousel-bar-lounge1-640x428

Carousel Bar & Lounge where patrons circumnavigate at one revolution every 15 minutes.

The biggest hit was the mandavilla lined rooftop pool

followed by fresh dressing gowns and chocolates that were found on the bed.

Next morning it was Beignets at Cafe Du Monde,

and a walk through Jackson Square with its specimen multi-trunked Mediterranean Fan Palms.

Chamaerops humilis

Hmm, I think I may not have given mine quite enough space – good job they are slow growing.

Are those…it can’t be…

…Oleanders…the size of trees!

This is not what we looked like after the drive back to Austin.

Stay Tuned For:

“Oh Drupes!”

All material © 2014 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Oh Frass!”

ESPatch May 26, 2014 8 comments

“Just a little bit further!”

“Why you little…”

The tobacco hornworms

Maduca sexta

have been bulking up on my tomato plants this past week and have now reached alarming proportions.

Illustration from John Curtis’s British Entomology Volume 5.

Talking of alarming proportions…

Really?

All this ‘frass’ from one caterpillar?

Yes I said frass.

I think I will affectionately adopt this term into my child-friendly, on-route vernacular, as in; “That frass on the bike just made me miss the green light!”

“What dad?”

“Never mind…

…Frass!”

I apologize if you are eating and reading, you should know better.

You can just make out the caterpillars tiny real eyes near the top set of legs, hands, manicured fingernails…whatever they are.

Look at this one eyeing up the already half-eaten tomato with one of its fake eyes,

of which there are many. They remind me of lazy-looking anole eyes and the detail and shading around them is remarkable.

I had four hornworms and they consumed around five green tomatoes and quite a bit of foliage before leaving the plants to pupate, a loss yes, but it was worth it for the daily competition to find them and to observe these bizarre creatures in chomping action.

Of course there is one other caterpillar that takes ‘bizarre’ to a whole other level of ‘frassyness’…

bird-poop I believe you know of whom I write.

A caterpillar-serpent or worse?

Giant Swallowtail

Papilio cresphontes

The first one of the year, lounging around in the open on one of my satsuma trees.

Well lets face it, it hardly looks an appetizing proposition.

Aw come on Bear.

Moving Along:

My opuntia tree is really turning into a tree.

The trunk of this cactus goes from pliable green extremities to wooded and petrified at the base and when it blooms the bees swarm it.

I have started another opuntia tree in my back garden which incorporates cactus man Jr.

“The Normandy Phase”

All material © 2014 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques

Insects