Just Random Stuff Today

Toadly seems to be very happy with the house pictures. I haven't mailed it to you yet Bro - I can't find a box! But since Froggy and I have another plan hatched, I might wait for just a bit. (Insert manaical laughter here).

Bugs! Lots of them lately.

This little guy was at the rent house the other day, I took a picture of it for Otter because she is her mother's daughter, after all! She liked the picture, incidentally. I don't think I've ever seen a grasshopper like this one. He was pretty big, too. About 3" long and very big legs.

This is actually a praying mantis, but the pictures aren't very clear. The camera battery was about to die, but he was moving quickly and I didn't think I'd have time to go find new batteries and change them. He was on the fence outside the kitchen window at home.


Still on the fence, I went outside of the yard to take the picture and the angle makes it look like the satellite dish is right there but it really isn't.



This creature is a cocoon, the fuzzy thing beside it is the remains of a fuzzy moth caterpillar we've been seeing bunches of lately. I discovered them when we were mowing the last this afternoon and called Otter to see them. Like I said before, she is her mother's daughter...

I just had the camera too close here, but it's the same cocoon and partially eaten moth.

The lawn mower finally died. Bill was trying to start it yesterday and it simply would not start. It almost started the first time he pulled the start rope, but then it wouldn't even almost start. So we went to Lowe's and bought another one. We were hoping to wait until next spring, because we didn't want to lose a lot of the warranty period with it just sitting over the winter. But we couldn't wait, so we faced reality and got another one. The other reason we wanted to wait is that there really are not a lot of lawn mowers available at the end of the summer. But Bill was able to find one for not too much $$ which is always good. By the time we got it home and he assembled it, it was too late so we used it tonight. And that's when we decided that we should have replaced the old one a lot sooner! (One of the benefits of having an Engineer for a spouse is that "some assembly required" is not a scary phrase.)

It was in the mid-40's last night. Time to get the blankets out! We are still using the fan in our room, but probably not for much longer. Then it will be time to get the humidifiers going. Winter's on the way, and possibly very soon.