Category: nature

Ellie, on the day we brought her home over 9 years ago. (Also, a rare picture of me as a teenager.)

And Ellie at the end of her life, when she was big enough to claim the whole couch for herself. Not that we minded.

It has been the summer of the mantis around these parts. Maybe because we’ve had so much wet weather, all of the bug populations have gone nuts? Whatever the reason, I feel like I’ve seen a ton of the alien-esque critters. Including these two:



Think the one of the left is a female Carolina mantis, while the dude on the right (obviously checking her out) is a male European mantis. She’s a little bit country. He’s a little bit rock and roll. She’s a little pregnant. He looks like a tasty snack.

Sheila here starts sauntering over to — er, Nigel? — who sees her coming and just stares. Until she’s barely two inches away, at which point he breaks into a full-on mantis sprint in the opposite direction. Love stinks.

Bored, Sheila starts climbing up some iron work on my porch. Nigel, not getting the idea that she’s just not that into him (except as dinner), follows her. As captured in this rare documentary footage!

[flickr video=3984847697 secret=d5cb4153ae w=400 h=300]

When I last saw our two lovebirds, Nigel was staring at Sheila as she tried to hoist her pregnant bum over the roof line of my porch. I will choose to believe this story had a happy ending.


[flickr video=3214229110 secret=29e08b1e86 w=400 h=300]

In memory of Phineas, who was my quiet buddy for six years, and who outlived his tank mates as well as the store who sold him to me. He wasn’t the best bred Shubunkin in the tank, but he was certainly the funkiest.

OK, guys. If you’re reading this, you’re on notice: no more deaths this year, all right? 2009 has been rough. I feel like wrapping my friends in bubblewrap.

In my brief foray into gardening this weekend I managed to piss off not one, not two but five praying mantises. Each time a tried to snip a stray morning glory vine or yank a weed, one of the beefy-armed bugs would appear from nowhere and try to clamber up my arms. And then I’d squeal and drop the offending foliage, mantis and all. Sorry, creepy alien bugs!

(That’s my neighbor’s house. Excuse the general dilapidation.)

The mantii(?) may actually be making a dent in the fly and mosquito populations around here, because this afternoon has been downright pleasant outdoors. I managed to get more sugar snap peas planted, a few varieties of lettuce and also some butternut squash. So far, my container gardening experience this year had been mixed: I got lots of unblighted tomatoes (although on the smallish side), plenty of herbs, only a few peas, and no peppers so far because something is destorying the hell out of my pepper plants. Grrrrr. Get ‘em, mantii!

Also in the gardening/bug catching vein, I’ve planted this venus flycatcher in an old lidded jar I picked up at a thrift store, and it’s now one of my favorite things. Whenever I spot a fruit fly droning around the garbage, I catch it in a cup and dump it into the flytrap jar. It’s like a slow, very low-stakes gladiator contest.

That trap in the lower left is eating an enormous black fly! And somewhere in there right now is a nasty tiger mosquito!
(I’m not sadistic, I just hate bugs. Unless they eat other bugs, of course.)
Edit: I’m told that mantises is actually acceptable. Also, mantes and mantids.

Jack and I recently made a trip to Anthropologie to pick out a dress for my birthday. When I’m there, I like to scour their homewares section for ideas — not for stuff I can buy, necessarily, but for stuff I can recreate myself on the cheap. Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters really never disappoint in this department. I’ve already blogged about a jewelry stand project I borrowed from UO, and I found some great instructions a while back for making a DIY Anthro endtable out of a set of IKEA small storage drawers and some Home Depot molding. Beats spending $698!

As I’ve been on a gardening kick lately, the new terrariums at Anthropologie caught my eye. I’ve been noticing terrariums on design blogs for a while and they just seem so enticing. Like if you look closely enough at the miniature world behind the glass, you might be rewarded with a tiny unicorn sighting. Or something. Err… anyway, I was ready to grab a bell jar and plant away. Here’s Anthro’s version:

At 12″ high, it’ll cost you a cool $168. Jack and I spotted a much smaller version in the store for $38 — still unjustifiable, if you ask me. So I took a cue from an equally overpriced book they were selling on the “Thrift Store Chic” design aesthetic, and took my business to my local Red White and Blue. It didn’t take long to find a little glass bowl with matching lid for 99 cents. I took it home, scooped some gravel out of my aquarium, borrowed some dirt from the veggie garden, and I was ready to plant. It’s been so wet out lately that I had no trouble finding enough moss to carpet my tiny ecosystem.

After that I added a few… well, let’s be honest, they’re weeds. Two kinds: one that looks like a mini tomato plant with green and pink leaves, and one that looks like a teeny vine with some purple polka dots.

I put the terrarium in the kitchen by the window where the little globe fogged right up. The whole project was less than a dollar. And I like it enough that I think I’ll make a matching one for my bedroom. I just spotted a similar bowl with a stem and foot like a wine glass at a different thrift store…

My birthday is on Thursday. I’m terribly unorganized about these things (I don’t even know what my plans are), but if you’re trying to shop for me and are scratching your head, here are some suggestions for gifts that are easy to come by but much needed:

  • Citronella candles and/or mosquito repellent that doesn’t contain DEET, so I don’t have to fear using it liberally. Damn bloodsuckers…

  • Pretty ceramic pots for plants. I’ve got tons of cheap faux terra cotta stuff and could use some color variety.

  • Wine. I can’t tell the good stuff from the bad stuff, either, so that’s a plus! Also: Limoncello or Disaronno. Mmm.

  • Art, if you make it!


I have a lot of vintage 1984 friends with June birthdays as well. Wishing you guys were all here so we could celebrate the big quarter century together! Instead, I’ll just post pictures of flowers for you:

Spotted growing from the paint buckets this morning. What a happy June surprise.

I’m blogging today from the great outdoors, if my backyard counts. I finally got patio furniture!

Just wanted to share a little DIY project before the week starts up and I get busy again. It involves finding a second life for the bunches of empty paint cans I’ve been accumulating since I started working on the house. I didn’t really want to chuck them out, so I saved the empties to use as flower planters. Here’s what they looked like back in March:

Inside each can, I inserted a plastic plant pot just small enough to fit inside the bucket, but big enough to leave a little rim sticking out to hold it in place. Figured it was better not to let the plants grow in latex paint water! I punched some holes in the bottoms of the cans for drainage, and filled the plastic pots with potting mix and some wildflower seeds.



The hooks were already there, so I hung a can on each. And here they are today:



I didn’t expect the cans to rust (aren’t they tin??), but I’m glad they did. The color is really nice against the back wall of the house. The plants haven’t quite got this “flowering” thing down, though. We’ll see what happens.

Back from an eight-day stay in Chicago, where I worked at — where else? — Art Chicago. I rarely have time to poke around the city when I’m at fairs like these, but what little I’ve seen of Chicago in the last two years I’ve really loved. The architecture is astounding, and I think Philly could learn a lot from their approach to having art in public spaces.

I took some video footage of Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain. It’s a piece that’s hard to describe unless you can see it in action. One catch: I took the video in a portrait format with my camera and Flickr doesn’t have the capability to rotate it. So here’s one end of the fountain (there are two of these video pillars facing each other), sitting on its side!

[flickr video=3507504832 secret=bdf2a381e7 w=400 h=300]

This piece, as well as the other pieces in Millenium Park, all have an element of interactivity that, when presented together in such a great public space, makes for an art exhibit like no other. But you know, whatever. I’m not jealous or anything. We’ve got Rocky.

The rest of the week is too much to recap. I met some lovely people, some famous people, and some real jerks. I got hit on, I got yelled at, I got thanked. My faith in art was dashed and then restored daily. I’m exhausted.

One thing keeping my spirits up right now is that I returned to my house after a week of rain to find that my little container garden has really taken off. Here’s a picture from before I left:

I returned to:

So I had a nice side salad with dinner tonight. Can’t wait for tomatoes!

Flickr Pick: 4.16.09

The tree is waking up from a very long nap. I still have to figure out what kind of tree it is. It’s not behaving like any of the others on the block. Tiny little pink flowers and baby orange leaves?