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November's got her nails dug in deep
Nov. 3rd, 2012 12:10 am
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 2. High today: 4. We had a bit of sun burning through the clouds around 10:30 this morning, and then some breaks in the clouds just before sunset. There were rumours of sunshine on Tuesday morning, but apart from that, we had pretty much a full week of overcast. They've been talking on the radio the last couple of days about how it's making people buggy. You'd wonder how they survive in some places on the west coast.
This thing here--
--is a female American Pelecinid wasp, with some bug that interrupted our photo shoot last month by wandering right through her front feet. She looked down at it and then turned and watched it go, like she was thinking, what the hell was that? Pelecinid wasps are part of Annie Dillard's Exhibit A against creation. Says Audobon: "Female shoves its abdomen deep into soil to detect host larvae below, then lays eggs one at a time, each on a separate host. Pelecinid larvae burrow into hosts, killing them. They scavenge on remains, then pupate there. Adults are active August-September." Well, I saw this one in October, but I guess it wasn't too active. Maybe it was just waiting there on that rock--that's the fantastic rock jutting out into the water in front of the cottage from which I do most of my fishing and take most of my pictures of the sky and the lake--for something to come along and eat it, taking its last bit of sun, having its last look around.
As it happens, I happened on someone else mentioning Annie Dillard today, when I remembered the existence of The American Conservative, as I sometimes do, and went off there to see what they're saying about things these days. (This isn't bad, about how hurricanes are not good for the economy. His follow-up posts on his blog make it a bit more interesting.) Eventually I got around to this, which starts off thus: "Annie Dillard tells the story of a young person who asked a distinguished author, 'Do you think I could become a writer?' 'I don’t know,' came the reply. 'Do you like sentences?'" Do I like sentences? Well, I dunno, some more than others, I guess.
This thing here--
--is a female American Pelecinid wasp, with some bug that interrupted our photo shoot last month by wandering right through her front feet. She looked down at it and then turned and watched it go, like she was thinking, what the hell was that? Pelecinid wasps are part of Annie Dillard's Exhibit A against creation. Says Audobon: "Female shoves its abdomen deep into soil to detect host larvae below, then lays eggs one at a time, each on a separate host. Pelecinid larvae burrow into hosts, killing them. They scavenge on remains, then pupate there. Adults are active August-September." Well, I saw this one in October, but I guess it wasn't too active. Maybe it was just waiting there on that rock--that's the fantastic rock jutting out into the water in front of the cottage from which I do most of my fishing and take most of my pictures of the sky and the lake--for something to come along and eat it, taking its last bit of sun, having its last look around.
As it happens, I happened on someone else mentioning Annie Dillard today, when I remembered the existence of The American Conservative, as I sometimes do, and went off there to see what they're saying about things these days. (This isn't bad, about how hurricanes are not good for the economy. His follow-up posts on his blog make it a bit more interesting.) Eventually I got around to this, which starts off thus: "Annie Dillard tells the story of a young person who asked a distinguished author, 'Do you think I could become a writer?' 'I don’t know,' came the reply. 'Do you like sentences?'" Do I like sentences? Well, I dunno, some more than others, I guess.
