Wasps are a New Addition to our Pollinator Garden

I started noticing the Giant Wasps last summer when I saw the Giant Black Wasp in 2021. I couldn’t believe the size of the bee. It appeared to prefer the Foxglove Beardtongue.

Next, I saw the Great Golden Digger Wasp. The wasp was on Mountain Mint, which it appears to prefer. This year, the Mountain Mint did not grow back, and I haven’t seen the Great Golden Digger Wasp, so striking with its golden legs and the part of the abdomen showing off a golden body.

The Giants are social wasps, but people are hesitant around giant wasps because they look a bit scary because of their size. The giants are very docile. They come for nectar and nectar only. The Wasp bees have shorter tongues and only can get nectar from shallow plants, such as aster and Rattlesnake master.

Rattlesnake master grew in the Pollinator Garden in 2021. It may have survived this year because giant wasps pollinated it. I see the plant growing this year, but I haven’t seen it bloom. I haven’t seen any giant wasps this year either.

Perhaps in August, we will see some life as they are known to show up when the Boneset and Goldenrod bloom. I will keep my eyes open.

Types of Black Wasps: Pictures and Identification Guide

Insectamonarca News

I do have butterfly and native plant news to share.

Spring is nearly here. Watch the news for a new parisite that may be attaching itself to the Monarch Butterfly and then infesting the caterpillar.

Butterflies of the Prairie Habitat was published in 2021. The book received outstanding reviews from a Native American journalist, a university professor, a social worker, and a cloud business creator. I am honored to know extraordinary people doing good work to benefit the planet. They know of my pollinator work and want to assist in getting the word out.

I will be 77 years old in April, and time is of the essence. What happens to the Monarch Butterfly will happen to us. I am grateful to my collaborators. We don’t do this work for the money, but rather the passion for the sustainability of the species.

Be sure to plant Milkweed in the spring. Thank you.

Creativity is a Curious Thing

The Glowing Neon of Spring!

I just stumbled upon this at https://willowcroft.blog/2023/03/20/the-glowing-neon-of-spring/, and I will explore more.

Here we see a Monarch caterpillar looking for food. As writers, we always need to connect with the creative writing community. 

April showers bring May flowers.

Books about the Amazon in the 1700s

I just finished reading The Mapmaker’s Wife by Robert Whitaker. The book brought back memories of the Amazon. In the 1970s, I lived in Peru, and then on another South American adventure a few years later, I traveled in the Ecuadorian Amazon Jungle for three months.

Robert Whitaker, a science writer, spent time on the Ecuadorian coast in a bamboo hut in the 1970s. Now, I am hooked.

Whitaker has a passion for the mental health field and the challenges of treating the difficult with Bad Science and Bad Medicine. His books are numerous:

Books:

• Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, Perseus Publishing, December 24, 2001, ISBN 0-7382-0385-8
• The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon, Basic Books, April 13, 2004, ISBN 0-7382-0808-6
• On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation, Crown, June 10, 2008, ISBN 0-307-33982-3
• Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, Crown, April 13, 2010, ISBN 978-0-307-45241-2
• Psychiatry Under The Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform, with Lisa Cosgrove, Palgrave Macmillan, April 23, 2015, ISBN 978-1137506924

The Victorian Farm

I am writing a creative nonfiction about the Ryall family. It is set in Warminster, Wiltshire, England, from the 1700s to 1870. In 1866, Benajmin Ryall, the youngest son, and his wife made a Honeymoon trip to the United States. The couple came to Saratoga Springs, New York.

In England, they were farmers and gardeners. I am watching a Documentary on Victorian Farming. The Farm Book was written in the 19th Century. I purchased a new book through Kindle titled: Henry Stephens’s Book of the Farm. It is wonderful that I am able to purchase the book on Victorian farming written by the original author in the 19th century. Henry Stephens’s Book of the Farm: is a concise and revised edition.

By reading the original book on Victorian Farming, I can write a more intricate farming history during the Victorian Era. Significant changes were happening in England in agriculture and the Industrial Revolution. There was a direct effect on my own family and why I am a 5th generation Saratogian. I am proud to say I am a gardener and environmental educator.

LOST

“Lost” [by David Wagoner]

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

— David Wagoner
(1999)

“The Revenants

I was immersed in the movie, The Revenants. The winter mountain landscapes were impressive and reminded me of years past. I have lived in the Adirondack Mountains, The Rockies, The Sierra Madre, and the Andes. The snow in the film is remembered in Upper New York on my dad’s farm out past Rock City Falls, on Armer Road, in the Adirondack Mountain foothills, and in Northwest Wisconsin.

Learn more about the film at https://lfq.salisbury.edu/_issues/46_2/i_will_be_right_here_the_revenants_native_american_vision_of_survival_and_permanence.html

An interesting line: “You don’t give up. You hear me? As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe. Keep breathing.” Now for someone who has a respiratory disease, the dialog is meaningful to me. It is the same with Native American endurance, one never gives up. The culture follows through in every segment of the movie. There are other cultures also, besides the Pawnee, including the French.

The Director, “Inàrritu, fashions The Revenant into a representation of Native American literatures as a genre by first appropriating then undercutting western conventions, national mythologies and culture heroes, Indian stereotypes, and US literature to spotlight the shared history, themes, and formal invention among Indian authors.”

https://wordpress.com/post/insectamonarca.wordpress.com/28768

Garden and Nature Friends

When I read the posts from gardening and nature friends, it feeds my soul. I don’t get to see many of them now that I am a senior and moved back home to Saratoga Springs, New York, but we are together through virtual reality.

I post a short thought with photographs and the like-minded respond in kind. I know I would be lonely if it wasn’t for my tribe who have the same passion for the natural world. We live within her and share our photographs and love.

Wake Up to the New World Order

Trace Lara Hentz is an avid researcher. This time, she has delved into ancient history, which is a new education for me.

Hentz has written a new book, Finding The Invisibles, at https://www.findingtheinvisibles.com.findingtheinvisibles.com/.

I find it interesting because of her unique way of reaching the public and making her work available to the masses for free—what a gift.

This morning, I have spent a few hours reading about ancient history that ties right into today’s financial global picture with the oligarchs. They are not only in Russia. We need to wake up. Usually, people are too busy with their own lives to pay attention to the worldwide wealth situation. When we don’t educate ourselves, we do not know how the money flows into the hands of the few (the companies) who own the world’s wealth.

Learn more at https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-wealth-in-one-visualization/

If we are going to survive, we need to know how the financial world operates and prepare ourselves. We, too, need to save and invest to hopefully hold the course of sustainability in a world of diminishing returns regarding earnings and retirement with living on fixed incomes. Learn how to buy low and store food goods that are indeed increasing in price. Grain such as wheat will be in short supply with the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is the breadbasket for global grains such as wheat. Stock up on flour and pasta.

I know it is worth our time to learn more so that we will understand how the world works.

MONARCH BUTTERFLY MIGRATION

The southern journey has begun. According to Journey North

Journey North citizen scientists in southern Ontario, the Midwest, and the Northeast still reported monarch activity, including roosting behavior and directional flight. With temperatures falling and daylight shortening, reports in these areas will continue to drop over the coming weeks.

Yesterday I was out in the Saratogo Community Garden and I did not see any Monarch Butterflies. The nights are dropping to the 40 degree F range and butterflies can not fly under 50 degrees F. Last week was a definite week of Monarch Butterfly sightings. There were Mexican sunflowers that the Monarch is drawn to with its bright orange color.

Be safe little Monarch Butterfly and may you have a successful journey back to Mexico. El Dia de los Muertos is on November 1, and the people in the mountains of Mexico look at the Monarch Butterfly as their ancestors returning, and they celebrate their annual return with festivities to honor the butterfly and their own departed.

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” — George Eliot

https://www.ibtimes.com/dia-de-los-muertos-quotes-english-15-sayings-celebrate-day-dead-2144662

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Altardediademuertos.jpg