 |
| Behold, dead Atlantic white cedar trees standing in the shallow water of an abandoned cranberry bog in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. This place is sometimes called a "ghost forest." The smoke on the left is coming from a distant forest fire. Click to enlarge. Does it give you a spooky feeling? |
 |
| You are now ready for Halloween. Go forth and get candy! |
 |
Song for Autumn, by Mary Oliver
Don't you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of wind? And don't you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for
the birds that will come -- six, a dozen -- to sleep
inside their bodies? And don't you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.
 |
| I have five kinds of mint in my little backyard garden. Behold, above, a glass of Mediterranean style lemonade with mint, garnished with a dried lemon slice and fresh mint sprigs. As an added benefit, throughout the summer, whenever I went to pick mint for drinks or tea or decoration, there were insects busy at the flowers. I watched, judged, and photographed. |
 |
| Here at the end of the growing season, I am bestowing the first ever annual Best-Insect-in-the-Mint-Garden award. This little eastern tailed blue butterfly is the winner! The best mint insect of the summer of 2024! It was a delight to see several of them, none much bigger than an inch across with wings wide open, all flitting from flower to flower at once. Click to enlarge. |
 |
| In the event that the eastern tailed blue butterfly cannot fulfill its duties, the runner-up, shown here, will step in. Let's hear it for the two-spotted scoliid wasp. Yay! |
 |
| Here's a photo with different lighting on different flowers. See where it gets its common name? |
 |
| And an honorable mention goes to this European honey bee for maintaining a dramatic pose while I hovered nearby with my camera pointed at her. Well done, bee, and congratulations to all of this year's mint visitors. |
 |
| How about a few humerus jokes? What, for instance, is half the diameter of a skeletal circle? |
 |
| The radius! Click to enlarge. |
 |
| And these guys. Looks like they know how to eat, drink, and be scary. I'll bet the food at that place is served on bone china. Do you suppose they'll pay the bill with cryptocurrency? Bone appétit! |
 |
| No bones about it, though, spider skeletons are the scariest. Because spiders don't have bones inside, they are supported by standard invertebrate exoskeletons. It's not only scary, it's a grave mistake... |
 |
| Do you know what a spider with 20 eyes is called? A spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiider. |
 |
| And do you know what spiders eat in Paris? French flies! |
 |
| Finally, and perhaps not soon enough -- do you know what the last skeleton on Earth would be called? The end-o-skeleton. :-) |
