The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Other creatures in our world
Voles apparently live only a few months, so this one may have run out of gas while crossing the driveway:
Or it just caught a heart attack?
It definitely wasn’t playing possum; nobody can lie still with ants up their nose.
It had vanished when we returned from our afternoon ride, so somebody further up the food chain also noticed it. As my buddy dBm puts it, “In Nature, nothing goes to waste.”
The Butterfly Bush outside the living room continues to attract flying insects, but, with the arrival of this year’s bumper crop of Praying Mantises, it has become something of a killing field.
If I hadn’t seen this, I wouldn’t have believed it:
Perhaps grabbing the bumblebee at the tip of the abdomen neutralizes the sting, but I only saw the flash of motion, not the actual capture.
The mantis changed her (?) grip several times while removing various accessories:
Although a bee’s leg may not seem edible, she chewed through them like Pocky.
Minus most of the bits and pieces, serious eating commenced:
Having watched several insects go through this process, the mantis proceeds from the head downward, eventually squeezing the abdomen like a tube of toothpaste.
A mantis can eat a bumblebee in about twenty minutes, from capture to discarding the empty husk. After a few minutes of body maintenance, ranging from leg cleaning to eye scraping, she begins waiting for the next meal to arrive …
The 4 inch column on the rear patio holds a bracket, probably intended for a welcoming sign or some such, which keeps the suet feeder mostly out of reach. It desperately wanted a coat of black paint to match the railing, so I stripped the old paint and applied Evapo-Rust:
The dark areas are iron oxide being converted to loose iron sulfide, which is what Evapo-Rust does for a living.
One could, of course, simply buy new eye screws & nuts, but we’re deep into historical preservation around here.
An hour of soaking and a few minutes of wire-wheeling got everything down to bare metal, ready for some rattle-can primer and black paint action:
It’s a version of what Eks calls a “used car finish”: high shine over deep pits.
Discussion of why one should not paint threaded parts will be unavailing; in this case, paint serves as permanent threadlock. I re-spritzed the eyescrews & nuts after getting everything aligned, so as to produce a lovely two-coat over-all finish.
The birds won’t care one way or the other and, as long as the paint lasts, neither will we.
Two Funnel Weaver spiders spun their webs across diagonal corners of the garden tool rack and appear to be peacefully sharing the bounty attracted by nearby lights.
The one on the left vanishes instantly into its funnel, deep inside the corner post, nearly every time we step onto the patio:
The other spider worked around a stick emerging from its refuge:
But it’s doing all right:
Their less adventurous compadres build webs on the plaintains festooning what might be called our lawn, making me feel awful while mowing in these months. I hope the mower’s vibrations drive them deep into the grass before it roars overhead, but I’ll never know.
A young Coopers Hawk swooped across the yard, landed on a branch, and proceeded to dismantle something yummy, scattering little bits on the driveway below. One piece fluttered down like a feather, but, after the hawk flew off, we found this:
It wasn’t a feather, it was an entire wing!
A few feet away, we found another:
Not that there was any doubt, but these parts clinched the identification:
Some days earlier, we admired eight Praying Mantises on the decorative grasses and bushes out front. Perhaps it was this one:
Or this one, a few feet away:
We don’t know what, if any, the difference between brown and green wing covers might indicate. Age? Gender? Attitude? Skill level?
It’s a food chain out there!
A recent Amazon purchase of three 3 lb bags of walnuts from a known-good seller arrived with many damaged nuts:
The damage matches what I read about Walnut Husk Fly infestations: shriveled kernels and terrible taste.
In round numbers, I found 8 oz of damaged nuts in each 3 lb bag, enough to ruin the entire batch. The seller immediately refunded the purchase price for all three bags, so there’s that.
It’s definitely not one of the counterfeit products plaguing Amazon, but I wonder why that lot didn’t fail incoming inspection.
I’m loathe to buy more walnuts for a while, though.
Memo to Self: Always inspect incoming purchases, even from reputable sellers!
The Butterfly Bush in front of the house attracts all kinds of insects, including Monarch Butterflies (shown here on the Goldenrod planted in the garden):
This year, the bush also attracted a Praying Mantis:
Then lunchtime happened:
A closer look:
Now, if that isn’t enough nightmare fuel for you, find some in your own neighborhood.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 