now I know

I saw this grasshopper on the chain-link fence in the backyard. I have seen these on occasion before. But what I find odd is the color. I am use to seeing green grasshoppers and not black ones.

On a recent trip to the Sanford zoo I happened to visit their "bug house" which contains their exhibits of insects. As I went from exhibit to exhibit I came across some black grasshoppers which were exactly like the one on the chain link fence. There was a display card explaining what these black grasshoppers were.

So now I know that what I was seeing was an Eastern Lubber Grasshopper. What a funny name. I took some pictures of the grasshoppers behind the viewing glass of the exhibit but they didn't turn out. I did a search on the internet and found a picture of an Eastern Lubber Grasshopper.

So now if you see one of these grasshoppers, you will know that it is the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper. And that concludes the entomology lesson for today. Have a nice day and be safe on this Memorial Day. Lew

"stackers"

Mary and I went to IHOP for their new pancakes called “stackers”. They were great and we liked them. They are pancakes with cheesecake between the pancakes and a fruit topping in a sweet glaze on top. We had the blueberry topping.

Mary decided to duplicate the stackers at home and got a package of cheesecake filling for between the pancakes.

She also got a can of cherry pie filling for on top of the pancakes. The pancakes were good and the maple flavored sausages just topped the whole breakfast off.

Now we don’t have to go to IHOP for “stackers” but just have them at home. Of course at home it is Mary who is doing all of the work making them instead of the cook at IHOP, so I am not sure which she prefers. Probably going to IHOP and leave the cooking and the dishes to someone else. That is what I would choose if I had to do the cooking.

Tomorrow is Sunday so go out and have a fabulous breakfast with all of the trimmings at your favorite restaurant and have fun. Lew

strawberries

I recently purchased a box of strawberries at the grocery store because the price was so inexpensive. I figured that strawberries must be in season for the price to be that low. After all, there is a large strawberry festival just south of Orlando where they grow jillions and jillions of strawberries. When I got home I took a close look at the label to see if they were grown in Polk county where they hold the strawberry festival. Much to my surprise, the strawberries were from California. It even says "California grown" on the label.

Why would the grocery store go through all of the expense to import these strawberries from California when there are fields and fields with "billions and billions" (Carl Sagan phrase) of strawberries grown locally. I am baffled by this. I must admit that the strawberries were ripe, sweet, large, and not a bad one in the box. Definitely high quality strawberries. So I have been enjoying fresh sliced strawberries with my cereal in the morning. Does anyone know whether strawberry plants are "annual" or "perennial"? I am depending on Villager or Seaside to let me know on this.

I grew up in a farming community in a rural town in New York. For me, summer was a time of feasting on all of the various crops that were grown or that I found wild: Juicy red McIntosh apples, deep dark Bing cherries, purple concord grapes, pears, plums, and some wild strawberries and wild blackberries. And if there weren't any crops ready for eating, well there was always the wonderful Mrs. Benson who would invite me to have tomato soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch with her children. She was always so kind to me and others.

I hope that everyone has a chance to enjoy the fresh fruits like strawberries and blackberries that are ripening. Have a good day. Lew

up, up, and away

Here is the shuttle Atlantis launch from here in Orlando. It is quite a sight when you consider how far Orlando is from the coast. But wait a minute. What is that in the picture that appears to be in the path of the shuttle?

Just a bird. But it is a great optical illusion. Go back to the first picture and see if you can see it. If you can then there is nothing wrong with your eyesight. With this launch I didn’t hear the rumble of the engines like I normally do. There is one more launch left. I hope that those not living near the Kennedy Space Center got to watch the launch live on television as it happened. I also like listening to the prelaunch commentary by the local television station reporters. I usually start listening to the live coverage about an hour before the launch. It is good because the science reporters explain everything that is going on with the launch preparations and what the mission of the shuttle is. Take care. Lew

the marble

Just a marble. What could be so important about a simple marble? Mary was in the backyard planting some flowers when she came across this marble in the dirt. She brought the marble to me to show me. I wondered for a moment on how it came to be there in the backyard. Perhaps some children of a previous owner of the house had at some time in the past been playing with marbles in the backyard and lost one of them. But that would have been a very long time ago and there sat the marble in the dirt awaiting discovery.

It sort of looks like a small watermelon, doesn't it? As I gazed at the marble I was amazed (as I have always been) on just how they get those colors into marbles in such an orderly fashion like the stripes of this marble. Then a flood of memories started coming back to me of a very young lad going grocery shopping with his mother. My mom would go up and down the aisles with her shopping cart, but not me. I always headed straight for the cereal aisle. My mom use to let me pick out my own cereal for breakfast. This was to keep me from protesting the cereal that she usually bought for me, shredded wheat. I hated shredded wheat. This wasn’t the sugar frosted bite size shredded wheat. This was the brick size unadorned shredded wheat that no matter how long it sat in the milk, it just didn’t seem to soften. Yuk! With this new freedom of being able to choose my own cereal I excitedly went from one brand of cereal to another looking at the boxes to see what free toy was included in the box of cereal. I didn’t choose my cereal based upon taste but on the toy that was inside. One day I discovered that there were six marbles in a plastic bag inside the box of corn flakes. Neat! I chose that one and when I got home I would get my mom’s biggest mixing bowl and dump the corn flakes into the mixing bowl to get to the marbles which were always in the bottom. Why didn’t I just open the box from the bottom? Inexperience. I just didn’t think of it. After retrieving the marbles, I would pour the corn flakes back into the box. I would eat hearty portions of the corn flakes each morning so that I could hurry up and get another box with more marbles. I built up my marble collection this way and kept eating the corn flakes until eventually they stopped putting marbles into the boxes of cereal. I used to get on the ground and draw a circle in the dirt and “shoot” my marbles. A couple of times I did this with other kids but I wasn’t very good at it and I always seemed to lose some of my marbles to them. I figured that it was better to shoot marbles by myself and that way I wouldn’t lose my marbles (please, no puns about losing my marbles). Besides, to me those marbles had value because I had to eat a lot of corn flakes to get them. I kept those cereal box marbles for the longest time. And so, this simple marble brought back all of these pleasant memories of scurrying down the cereal aisle and the fun times that I had with my free marbles. Sometimes it is the simpler things in life that are really important. This blog was just a little snippet from my life and I would be interested in hearing little snippets from other people’s lives. I guess that this blog has gone on long enough and as Paul Harvey would say “Good day”. Actually, I like Crocodile Dundee better, “G’day”. Lew

Starship Troopers bug

Mary knows that I like to look at different kinds of bugs. She came into the house excitedly telling me to come see the bug on the front steps. She showed me this bug which was at least two inches long. I haven't seen a bug like this before. I don't know what those two large indentations are for. Actually the bug reminds me of the bugs in the sci-fi movie Starship Troopers where humans battle giant bugs

After taking the pictures we just let the bug go on its way. You can get an idea of the size of the bug by comparison to the cement step.

I was at Wal-Mart looking for snack treats for the rabbit. We had been giving the rabbit these golf ball size of balls of compressed grain that were somehow stuck together. I saw a snack treat for rabbits that were called yogurt bits and were suppose to be small hard chunks of yogurt with blueberry mixed in. They looked and smelled good, but the rabbit wasn't interested. I took them out to the squirrel feeder in the tree but the squirrels didn't want them either, so I guess that I will have to throw them away. We have lots of squirrels which are fun to watch. I always put any leftovers that I think that they will eat onto the squirrel feeder. Time to go. Have a nice day and enjoy the weather before it gets real humid and sticky and topped off with hot, hot, hot. Don't forget tomorrows shuttle launch at 2:20 pm. Lew

attack of the snails

Snails everywhere. They are all over the wall, all the way up to the roof line. Too many to count.

And they are in all sizes. Little ones, big ones, and medium sized ones. I am wondering if they will damage the plants.

I have to admit that up close they are really quite pretty with their different colored bands.

Without the close-up pictures of my camera, I would never have seen their beauty and their complex nature. I am just experiencing quite a world of discovery with my camera. Have a nice day and don't forget the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on Friday at 2:20 pm. It is the next to the last one. After the launch on Friday there will only be one more launch left and then it will all be gone; the live countdown coverage, the rocket glare, the plume going up through the sky, and the rumble of the engines. I will truly miss it all. The passing of an era. Hopefully Seaside will get some pictures of it. Take care. Lew