A Light in the Harbor

We took a trip north today to visit our nephew and took a side trip to Sandusky, Ohio to see the lighthouses. A Light in the Harbor Public Art Exhibit features 24 lighthouses in or near the downtown that have been painted by local or regional artists. They will be on display and are accessible via a walking tour through Labor Day and then auctioned off to benefit the American Red Cross Firelands Chapter.  We saw 14 of the 24.  Posted are a few of my favorites.  Of course we got a perch sandwich at the New Sandusky Bay Fish Company, walked the beach at Lion's park to look for beach glass (yes)  and then completed our afternoon with a trip to Toft's ice cream where I had a sundae made of graham cracker ice cream with chocolate covered graham crackers and topped with marshmallow and hot fudge which was suggested by the 16 year old who waited on me after I asked her opinion of the graham cracker ice cream. Slammin' suggestion I might add. 

 Legend of the Lake

 Lighting the Way with Faith

 Sun's Flowers

 

Summer on the Chausee

For the Birds

Spaghetti Squash

Last year I saved some seeds from a spaghetti squash my aunt gave me. Yesterday we picked a few of the resulting squash which are hybrids since we used seeds from the squash and not seeds from stock. I can't wait to try them. I love squash and these came out in all kinds of fun sizes and shapes and there are even more still forming!

The Troll Hair Tree

When our nephew was here a few weeks ago he commented that he liked our "troll hair tree".  Andrew, unsure of what he was referring to, asked him to explain. He pointed at the huge mimosa tree in our front yard and said, "that one".  We looked up and sure enough the blooms look like troll hair.  Kids have some unique perspectives.  Anyway we were at a garage sale this morning and I paid a whopping quarter for this troll from the early 90's. Almost an antique.  He matched the mimosa blooms perfectly.  We brought the tree back from Arkansas in the summer of 2000. It was a tiny twig and got nipped by a rabbit  (not Pip) twice before it finally took off. All summer long while it is blooming people in the neighborhood stop by and comment on how much they love it and how beautiful the flowers are. I agree!

 

A happy little troll!

 

Playing in the "troll hair tree"

 

The mimosa over the drive.

Shade

We are under a heat advisory again today which is to continue through Saturday.   One of the reasons we are having such an issue with the rabbits being hot this year is because we lost the half of our maple tree that was shading the rabbitry. After a bit of brainstorming we came up with an idea to restore some of the shade that we lost when the tree came down. Andrew took a couple pieces of PCV pipe and attached them to a shade cloth. (Shade cloth is a dark cloth made of special sun absorbing material and is used in the nursery business to protect trees that are being transported in hot weather).  He covered half the roof and extended the cloth out past the rabbitry on the end that gets full sun from 2-8 pm to make a protective awning. The entire thing is tied down to eye bolts so that if we get a furious storm it won't blow away. Although it's still very hot this has definitely helped absorb the sun and the rabbits seem to be much more comfortable. Unfortunately its not the prettiest contraption but since the neighbors can't see it anyway it doesn't matter.  Total cost = zero dollars.  The parts were all given to us at one time or another and were being stored until a use could be found for them.

 Looks pleasant enough..

 This is the end that receives full sun. Note all the fur blowing from the fan. It just seems to collect on a daily basis.

 The awning

 and just a side view showing the top being covered too

Inside looking straight west. You can see in this photo by how the shade is back lit how much sun it is blocking.

Aren't They Cute?

Five day old HHD larva. They have been dining solely on sweet gum leaves and have refused walnut, hickory and sycamore. Go figure.

 This is on the tip of a sweet gum leaf

 This is extreme macro

Here's a quick video of the larva eating.  Note how it goes back and forth and scoops out a shape that fits it's head. In the last 3-5 seconds you will see it defecate. 

Tired of the Heat

Poor Duke. He's so tired of the heat. He's every which way trying to relax and get comfortable.  Unfortunately there is more scalding hot weather on the way for later in the week.

  

A Handsome Fellow

Pip and her mate were out in the yard this evening. I haven't seen her in over a week and him for about a month.  Anyway she came right over to me for a handout and he hovered about, regarding me with great curiosity. At one point he ran a circle around me and then disappeared.  Later they were both out again and I got this nice photo of them together; Pip was preoccupied with eating and he was still a bit wary. Don't you love his beard?  He's a handsome boy indeed!

"Top Favorites"

The annual Cruisin' for Tunes vintage car show was yesterday. Sponsored by the high school band, this is one of our favorite auto shows because the entry fee goes to support the band and the location is very close to our house.  There were 54 entries in the show and our 1973 Buick Centurion convertible was chosen as on of the "Top Favorites" in peer voting from all the entries.  We were pretty pleased as our car is all original and isn't flashy or souped up-it's just a good ole' American made car.  The was an older crowd there yesterday too so that didn't hurt as these were the types that still appreciate the "boat" car. After the show, during which we endured several hours of 95 degree temperatures, all the cars cruised down State Street in uptown. That was a lot of fun as people were lined up on the sidewalk watching and filming the parade. We drove over to the lake to take a few photos and enjoy the breeze that blew up prior to the huge storm that we got which dumped 4 inches of rain on us in 2 hours.

Hatched!

The HHD's hatched today.  All but two of the 24 eggs hatched but they have hatched throughout the morning starting around 7 am so I think the remaining ones are in process. For size comparison I have included a photo of one on the tip of my finger taken with a 35mm lens. The rest of the photos are taken with a macro lens (highly magnified) so you can see the detail in the eggs (pre-emergence) and larva. There is a 30 second film clip that shows one of them leaving it's egg. This one actually took a total of about a minute and a half to free itself. Some of the others took up to 20 minutes to complete the process. Some of them ate themselves out of the eggs; others just wiggled free.

 

Highly magnified view of eggs with larva visible inside. Larva to the left has emerged.

 Tiny larva with their "horns" already visible.

 

Larva on my finger tip for size comparison.

Extremely magnified larva on it's food source-a walnut leaf. They actually will dine on many types of leaves. In a future post I will list a few.

We Like Ice!

I don't mind the heat but I do worry about my rabbits.  Today was excruciatingly hot for them.  I gave them all ice in bowls or their cages.  They all loved it. Some of them ate it and some of them played in it and they all layed in or against it and seemed grateful for its presence.

 

And this is in the shade!

 Angelica snuggled right up to her bowl

 Evan Almighty wanted to lay in it

 Marcus is surrounded...

 

Big Norm is having a tough time and he has his own fan too.  I just poured it over him and I swear I heard him sigh in relief.

The Natives are Restless

The hickory horned devils are preparing to exit their egg cases.  This evening we were able to observe them, via a macro lens on the camera,  moving about inside the egg. In the still pictures you can see the darkening areas of the individual eggs. This is the developing, almost mature embryo that will hatch as a tiny caterpillar- the first instar of the larva.  In the 27 second movie clip below if you look on the far right side of the frames at the darkest egg you will see movement inside. The movement starts as soon as the clip starts and you will have to look close to see the larva moving. (In the bottom right corner of the video you can make it full screen which enables you to view the movement better although it's a little blurry because I put a low resolution video up so it would load faster). We put walnut leaves in their enclosure so if they hatch during the night they can begin eating. The larva will go through about 5 instars between now and August/September until they finally have grown large enough and have enough energy to pupate. If you missed it the first post in this on going series is here.

Pip in the Making

Andrew says we've got another Pip in the making.  One of the babies from Pip's first litter (May) has been less and less apprehensive about our presence in the yard over the past couple weeks. Going back to the incident where we rescued one of the kits from a crow I think this is the baby that bit me when we rescued its litter mate because the other two don't have eye stripes and this one does and I didn't get a photo of it that day.  Anyway on Thursday night Pip came to the rabbitry for a handout and for the past couple nights baby Pip has been there waiting although h/she runs when I get within a couple feet whereas Pip lets me get two inches from her with my hand and doesn't run. Last night h/she was sitting by the food bucket; cracks me up.  Here's a couple cute pictures of the baby.  Animals learn behavior by watching each other. Wouldn't you love to know if they talk to each other?  Reminds me of Watership Down...

Creekin'

The wagon train (last time in service=1976) left the field station south for Darby Creek this morning loaded with all the necessary supplies for an outing on the creek.  Our nephew is visiting us for the weekend; his first time a distance away from home, and we wanted to do something that would be fun for him that we could also tolerate (being the socialites that we are).  We traversed an entire mile of the jungle like prairie trail filled with poison ivy, nettles, and snakes to the the edge of the lower Darby - 35 miles north of the Scioto River. We found a tadpole, a frog, toads, 12 species of fish (including a gar), 3 species of freshwater mussels and lots of dragonflies and darners (all of which were released back into the wild unharmed after viewing and discussing). Both Daisy and James came home wet, muddy, and full of burrs and a good time was had by all.  

Off to the creek

The prairie trail.

James caught a toad.

 

Andrew and Mac use a seine to capture creek critters.

 

Mr. Crayfish-my what big pinchers you have.

 

Holding a freshwater mussel.

 

Darters, sunfish and gar - oh my!

Daisy taking a dip. She loves the water!

Soggy doggy

The Eggs Are Here!

My friend Viki over at Watchin' Fur Fly emailed me the other day to say she had found a Royal Walnut Moth (citheronia regalis) and that it had layed eggs and did I want the eggs. Oh boy did I!  Little did she know that the RWM is my favorite insect and I raised them from egg to adult as my senior project in one of my environment science classes in college.  At that time digital photography was just being developed and the equipment too expensive for my budget.  I documented the project at that time with my old Olympus OM-1 camera; a totally manual camera and still one of my favorites.  Anyway this time around I am excited to have digital camera and video and hope to be successful once again with hatching the eggs and rearing the larva (named Hickory Horned Devil) to pupa to adult emerge next spring. Funny thing about all this- I had just mentioned to Andrew when we were on our insect outing at Clear Creek last Sunday that I would love to get a hold of some eggs of the RWM so we could do a photo essay on the lifecycle.  They are not all that easy to come by. 

Eggs layed July 12, 2010

1993 series:

 Eggs

 Larva (43 days old and near pupation) @ 6 inches long

 Pupa

Adult-palm of the hand size with wings spread.