The new term has begun, so we have a bountiful, if ever so slightly dry, hoedown this week.
1. Right now aphids are giving birth to the only males of the year. The males will mate with females and lay the eggs that will overwinter and emerge next Spring. Up until this point in the year, all the aphids that were chowing down on your plants were female and most of them were clones. A female aphid that you meet in July is pregnant with her clonal daughters, who, inside their mother’s body, are pregnant with her clonal granddaughters. Aphids give live birth up until the end of the season when they lay next year’s eggs.
2. Gorse, a spiny and now noxious introduction from Ireland, burns so hot because of its volatile oils that a fire that started on the coast of Oregon in 1936 nearly burned the town of Bandon to the ground. The fire could not be put out with water, and 1,800 homes were destroyed and 10 people killed.
3. I went to see a private garden yesterday that is 4 acres managed with no pesticides and only organic fertilizers. Not only can it be done, it was beautiful and is due to be featured in Sunset Western in the coming months. (More on this property later.)
4. I’m discovering this week that the differences between many maple species are so subtle, it’s tempting to try to identify every single one on campus before the midterm. That way, no matter where the Bataan Death March of Plant ID stops along the course, I’ll know the tree. It’s probably not going to happen.
5. To most of my readers, this will not be news: when you turn or clear an area for new planting or construction, you bring all the dormant weed seeds to the surface. That’s the reason for the sudden explosion of weeds, many of which you haven’t seen nearby recently, or ever. It’s like Christmas for weeds.
6. Buggy outreach, where you set up a booth with your beasties and encourage passersby to hold them, is delightful. There’s nothing like getting up one’s nerve to hold the big cockroach and then having it scramble up your arm and across your neck. The kid in question was surrounded by friends, so he was under extreme pressure to be cool and he was very courageous as I reached down his collar to retrieve his visitor. The random screaming and willies of other visitors to the booth were equally enjoyable. No little girl, you cannot hold the black widow.
7. Crane flies don’t eat mosquitoes, but yeah, it would be neat if they did.
8. New neighbors moved in recently and brought a mean case of Chainsaw Disease to their stand of 40′ poplars. It’s filled the street with resentment, but also anticipation for next summer. The trees were on the southwest side of the house and the new neighbor has no idea how hot our little hill gets in the summer. May you bake clean through in your house, lady.
9. I saw an Assassin Bug skating across the surface of a horizontal spider web yesterday. He wasn’t entangled, he was just cruising over it. It was during a walking lecture, so I couldn’t investigate fully – but it gave me pause.
10. When I’ve finished all 35 of the samples and you decide we need a larger sample, so we’ll do another 35, just give me a second to check my tears and ennui.
11. Remotes that you use in class to respond to lecture questions posed by the professor are about the dumbest things ever.
