I hear dead people

Again.  In my life.  I have succumbed to the voices.

It started with the plants this time.  Listen to the plants, said the herbalist.  The lady on the plant walk said that gems spoke to her and told her their properties.  Then I found out about Laura Stinchfield, The Pet Psychic on YouTube.  And I started remembering my own weird, strange experiences with animals when I was younger.  And weird, strange experiences with people.

And how I slowly dialed down my ability to tune in to the voices of animals.  In favor of... sanity?  It was much safer to walk around the world not believing that I could understand what animals were saying.  Much safer not to believe that I could influence things with my mind.  That way led to depression.

Therapy.  Getting in touch with my inner child.  Then letting it go.  Travel.  Travel.  Listening to people speak in other languages and experiencing other cultures cleared me for a while.

Love.  Marriage.  Birth birth birth.  Cleared me to a new level.  Brought me to the threshold of believing again, but I resisted.

I don't know what opened me up.  I think it was a video on YouTube of Rupert Sheldrake's study on a psychic parrot.  That made me think, hmmmm....  I recognized how the parrot and the woman talked to each other.  It reminded me of other videos of parrots talking.  And also videos of well-trained dogs.  The way the parrot gives the word before the trainer is even finished giving the cue.  The way dogs perform the action as the trainer is giving the cue.  There is not time for the animal to have thought about what the person is going to say.  The animal is picking up on the intentions of the human.

Watching these videos reminded me of a time in my own life when I spoke with animals.  When I lived with Leyton Cougar, the current director of Wild Spirit Wold Sanctuary, he taught by example how to talk with animals.  He did it naturally with his pets and with the wolves at the sanctuary.  He had a natural rapport with the wolves that is evident to anyone who watches him with them.  He spoke with his animals like they were people and they responded to him with a calm clear energy.  I adopted his way with my own dog, Kenai, who came to the Sanctuary from people who thought he was a wolf, even though he was actually a dog.  Kenai and I had an amazing relationship for fourteen years, that I contribute much of that to his early life out at the wolf ranch and my own learning how to listen to animals.

After that experience at the wolf ranch I returned to college and slowly let go of the idea that I could actually hear the animals.  I studied at the College of Biological Sciences and felt like letting go of that idea was akin to growing up.

There have been a series of recent events that have rekindled my interest in psychic abilities.  I have finally accepted that any and all psychic abilities are not special in any way.  Everyone has these abilities and usually knows at least one person in their family who has some kind of special ability, talent, or gift.

I watched many videos on YouTube about animal communicators and I now realize that this is almost an accepted field.  Almost every veterinarian has or would like to have an animal communicator to send patients to with animals who have problems that are difficult to diagnose or hidden pain.  And *every* animal communicator says the same thing about how they send and receive information... through words and pictures in their mind.

And I've started receiving words and pictures from my animals.  I received a story from my lizard about how she was caught.  She has a regrown tail and I always assumed it was from the person who caught her.  She said that she likes my children and likes children in general, she feels safer around children because she understands their energy and intentions much more clearly than adults.  She said that a child was the one that caught her.  She said that she knew the child.  It was a child who lived in the houses near her home in the desert.  She said that the child was known to other animals as well, that the animals know which children are the ones who are curious about animals.  She said that the child captured her gently and sold her along with a bunch of other lizards to a man who was like a traveling buyer, who traveled around to different towns and offered money for animals like lizards and tortoises and snakes.  Children knew about this man and could earn money for their family by collecting animals.  She said that it was a rough man who handled her in the transportation process who broke her tail.  She said that she understood the child's need and that she was also grateful for life after having gone through such a horrible process.  She thinks that she helped the child get money for its family.  That her life became a scary adventure to help another person but that in the end she is happy to live with us.  We are happy she is with us too and we tell her that every time she comes out.

Then recently another strange thing happened.  We checked out a book at the library called Casey Jones' Fireman: The Story of Sim Webb.  It was strange because it was in the section with the fairy tales, not the biographies, despite the fact that Sim Webb is a real person and the story is mostly factual, with mild reference to the supernatural.  Anyway, the book is a little dense for my 2yo, or so I thought.  She loved it and requested it several times.  Whenever I read this book it made me think of the song from the movie Dumbo about the little cartoon train they called Casey Junior.  I can hear the song from an old record we had as a kid of Disney movie songs.

"Casey Junior's comin' down the tracks!"

That song rattling through my head all the last week.

Then I find out on facebook that a dear sweet friend, who lives down the street, had a nephew, named Casey Junior, commit suicide!  I was so upset for her, as were many many of her friends and there was an outpouring of support on her page.

Then I got this message... from the boy.  I did see a picture of him, but I really don't remember where, it must have been on her facebook page.  I can see his image clearly in front of me.  He's wearing a black hoodie.  He has longish dark brown hair.  I mean the hair is not long, but it's kind of long around his face, kinda spikey longish pieces hanging toward one side of his face.  That's not how it always was, just how it looked because the hoody was pushing the hair around his face.  I think he was squatting or kinda sitting.  He is kinda smiling, but not very big.  His eyes have a relaxed squint to them that his family would recognize as one of their common traits, if they smile you can't see their eyes very well in the picture.

I got a message from him.  The message was that he is okay.  That he wants his family to know that he is okay.  That he didn't mean to.  He did feel sad a lot.  He did feel like he was a burden.  He felt like he was dumb.  He felt like some people were telling him he was dumb and he didn't know how to change that but that it made him feel bad.  He says he's sorry and he really didn't mean to go all the way.  He just wanted to try it, he didn't mean for it to work.  He really loves his family and he feels bad that everyone is so sad.  The reason he was so sad in life was that he didn't think he was smart enough to do what he thought people wanted him to do.  He keeps saying that some of his family are worried about him because he committed suicide and they think that he went to hell but that he's not in hell and that he's okay and that there are lots of other kids where he is at.  He is meeting other kids who did the same thing he did and they are all okay.

And I really want to tell my friend this information, but I think maybe that would be stepping over a boundary.

I have a cousin who also committed suicide.  And for the first time today I really talked to him.  He said that most people who commit suicide feel like a burden and that is why they do it.  He felt like his parents already had their hands full and he didn't know who to turn to and felt out of control.  He didn't like the way he treated his wife and his children.  He didn't know how to control himself.  He was absolutely distraught and felt like a huge burden.

I asked about Hell.  Does it exist?  And he said that there is definitely dark energy and negative fields and that there are people who choose to exist in those realms, but that much of our human understanding of hell is based on human existence and the lessons on earth.

Since I have been communicating with animals I tuned in to what the animals had to say about suicide and I was reminded that animals commit suicide all the time.  Mass suicides of fish and whales happen every year and they do it because they cannot tolerate the conditions on Earth anymore.  In some ways, this is similar to people committing suicide, people cannot tolerate the conditions of their life anymore.

Anyway, the point is that I have officially transformed back in a woo-woo person.  Woot!  It kinda feels good too.  I really enjoy talking to my pets.  But I definitely feel an even greater need to meditate now, to have a daily "grounding" so that I can be able to filter all the many voices that now pull at my skirt.  (Have I started yet?  No!  Only *thinking* about doing it!  lol) Like now I feel major pressure to stop eating meat.  I hear the screams of the animals in a second by tuning into it.  But I also feel the love of all the animals around me.  I also feel more connected to my children because I see how the animals actually speak through the children because the children are so receptive to intuition.

One is the Loneliest Number

The last frog of its kind lives out the rest of his life in a terrarium in Atlanta.

Tree gift

I made a bracelet for one of our trees today. It didn't start off for the tree. It started off for me. I have a book called something like "Braiding and Knotting" by Constance Belash, I think. That name was rattling through my brain for days before I figured out where it came from. There are lots of neat projects in the book for how to make a raffia hat, and sandals "from tropical fibers", and a braided leather belt, and macrame type stuff. I think I might be able to make a hammock from the directions. One of the projects is called "knotted bead bracelet". It's a bracelet with a loop on one end and a big bead-like knot on the other end. The instructions call for "coated gimp." Which is elaborated as "tape coated with pyroxylin." Bearing in mind that this book was written in the 70s, I knew I had a little research cut out for me. (Yea!)

Coated gimp... I couldn't find much in the way of that, but I did find gimp and I did find pyroxylin. Gimp is also called lanyard is also called boondoggle is also called scoubidou. It is that hideous neon-colored "plastic lace" that kids at summer camp use to make hideous keychains. I knew that my fine hippy Dover press book was not referring to such garbage. But they were referring to some sort of pre-runner because pyroxylin is a kind of celluloid coating, used in theatrical make-up as a kind of second skin, simulating wrinkles, scars, or baldness. The fabric tape coated in such material was more leather-like than just straight fabric and cheaper than real leather. Today's gimp is plasticized PVC tubes. Not too "green". I think they manufacture it just for kids crafts! Yikes! Biodegradability factor... zero. Trash factor... high.

So I decided to substitute twine. Just to play around with the braiding and knots. I found the twine in my dad's shed. And following the directions I fashioned a rather crude, scratchy, wabi-sabi kind of bracelet. No way was I going to be harnessed with such a creation. So I took it outside and fastened it around an ironwood tree, down in the hollow. It's just a magic little tree circle spot in our yard that begs to be festooned. I have also placed some stone carvings down there for the spirits. And last week a fall wreath came in the mail for the previous owners that they said we could keep, so I hung that down there on a tree next to a packrat's cholla-laced entryway. The bracelet fit perfectly around a branch that was already decorated with a string of shells, so I interwove the two. Gift for the tree!

Banded Gecko Bonanza

We have been having a herpetological hoe-down here at the house! Tonight was banded gecko night. Unfortunately, my camera is taking a break right now, so I couldn't capture any visual magic to share with the world!

I was facebooking when Erik appeared outside the office window with a flashlight, waving his hands at me. I waved back in acknowledgement and he shook his head and motioned the "come here" gesture. I knew he had found some cool critter so I dashed out to the front door, slipping my bare feet into flip-flops just before I ran outside.

"A banded gecko!" he calls out to me.

"No way! Show me!"

My mind is filled with all the images of this beautiful lizard that I have only seen in books until now.

"He might have run away already. He ran pretty fast." Erik warned.

We came upon the path and Erik squatted down next to a good-sized agave clump.

"He went in here." He shown his flashlight around the base of the agaves, among the dried-up, curled brown protective layer at the bottom. Perfect hiding place for a banded gecko.

"I think he's gone. Nope, there he is! See him, Honey?"

I caught a brief glimpse of an ivory tail with chocolate crossbands. "I see him!" The gecko walked a little further into the depth of the agave clump.

Erik stood up and looked down the path shining his flashlight under the palo verde tree and cholla.

"Give me the flashlight! I want to see him!" I pleaded.

"Ok, but be careful of the agave spikes!" My husband loves to be the nature teacher. I let him. It's fun feeling like a kid at camp.

I step over some palo verde branches that have been laid out waiting for either a chipper-shredder or a brush-and-bulky pick-up. Minding the arrow-tips of the agave I squat down and shine the light under the blue, powdery spears. My flashlight finds him and my heart skips a beat.

"Hello there! You are so beautiful!" The gecko closes his eyes from the obnoxious light. I try to make sure only the edge of the light illuminates him, not the bright center.

His skin is the most creamy velvety texture of any other desert reptile I have seen. He looks so soft and squishy, too tender for such a harsh environment as the desert. He has the paired swollen gonads at the base of his tail, so I know he is a male, maybe looking for a female. The skin color is a base of buttery cream with purplish chocolate bands boldly crossing his body. His eye is a soft black drop of ink, with an innocence that makes me feel embarrassed to be so vulgarizing to him. This thought makes me immediately stand up to give him his space back. I smile at Erik and hand him the flashlight.

"Let's see what else is out there."

We continue our walk around the property, stopping to listen to Sceloporus, the spiny lizards, scrambling up a tree upon hearing us. We also note the abundance of tarantulas. As the path reaches the main driveway there are solar lights along the edge. Under one of these lights scurries another Coleonyx! The light was very dim, one of those LED glow lights that looks like a little pagoda lantern. Also under the light, perched on a rock just next to it, was a small green praying mantis, who clearly seemed annoyed at us interrupting his dinner hunt. We turned off the light to watch the mantis. A car drove right by on the road and the mantis turned its head in the direction of the car. Erik tapped the butt of the flashlight on the rock it was sitting on and the creature turned in that direction and looked right at Erik's face. Those things are just like little alien robots. I watched him, hoping to see a strike, but he started cleaning his grabbers, patiently waiting for the lumbering giants to keep on their way so he could focus.

We continued on out to the road to check for snakes. Erik shined his light on a plant that looked like a roadside weed in front of the neighbor-across-the-street's house. The house is up a slope and there is a railroad tie berm along the road to make the ground for the yard and house level. The space the plant occupies is about a five foot gravel clearance between the street and the base of the first railroad tie of the berm.

"I'm so jealous of that plant!" Erik said.

"What is it? I want to see it." I replied.

We walked across the street and up to the plant. "Proboscidea," Erik said, "Devil's Claw."

"Oh, you don't have to be jealous of that! That grows easily and we can get that anywhere!"

Erik bends down to look for a ripe seed pod. The plant is a prostrate form with small leaves, only about an inch across. It is about three feet in diameter. There are no other plants within ten feet on all sides.

"Another banded gecko! A baby!" Erik sputters.

"What? I think I see them too!" I can see definite movement among the fleshy stems of the plant. A hatchling Mediterranean house gecko, Hemidactylus, runs out of the shrub and climbs the railroad tie.

"Awww... they're just Mediterranean geckos. No wait, I see another one! And it has definite stripes. They ARE banded geckos! They're hatchlings! I think they just hatched right now!"

Erik starts looking around the base of the plant for more babies. "How many do they have?"

"I don't know. Leopard geckos have four or five I think."

We confirm two neonates. About the width of a pencil and half as long as your pinkie. They looked FRAGILE! One already was missing its tail. The first thing Erik thought was, "We need to move them. They're so close to the road. Let's bring them to our yard." He started to put his hand down around the one that still had the tail.

"No! You'll kill it!"

"Don't worry, I didn't touch it."

Erik keeps searching around the base of the plant with the flashlight, looking for more babies. There is some cellophane with some movement around it. "This place is crawling," Erik says.
What at first glance appears to be ants, on second thought looks more like termites to me.

"Look! The one without the tail is going over to the termites!"

As he approached the opening in the earth, spilling forth with grub, his posture perked up. He started looking straight down at the insects, and following their movement with little jerks of his head. He circled halfway around the hole, keeping his eyes on the prey. Then almost imperceptably he delicately picked one up in his mouth and mawed on it, turning it around with his jaws and tongue. The next one was a little more deliberate. We watched for one more minute and then stood up to allow the tailed one to join its sibling in one of their first meals.

We pondered the location of the geckos, so precariously close to the biggest killer of herps, the road. Maybe we could bring them onto the safety of our property... No, they had a perfect meal in front of them and that was more important for them at this point in their lives than our perceived sanctuary. Their mother probably laid the eggs close to that food source with her eons of wisdom. The railroad ties probably offered numerous tunnels and hiding spots under them. Perhaps their mother gave them the best possible chance that she could, in spite of it being so close to the road. The road is a reality of life. Maybe there are less predators near the road. Who knows?

As we walked back to the house, sans any kind of photographic record of the event, I pondered the wisdom of the desert. Why does she reveal her beauty in torrential showers, and not it parceled drips. All the times that I have gone hiking, hoping to see some new critter, and come home deflated. And tonight, each time I saw the banded gecko, I thought, "Wow! I want to stay here all night and watch this one. It can't get any better than this." And twice she proved me wrong, pulling back the veils to reveal ever more tender moments. And all so close in time to one another! Like fireworks, spectacular, short-lived bursts of light.

P.S. Last week in one day we pulled a neonate Holbrookia and a neonate Cnemidophorus from our pool filter, each alive. The next day a neonate Hemidactylus. And there are two Lampropeltis getula hanging around our house. Not to mention at least two Crotalus atrox. And a long-nose snake was picked up off the road at my uncle's house a few miles away and let go on our property. And Erik saw a Crotaphytus on a hike and a magnificent foraging Cnemidophorus burti.

Night-blooming Cereus Flower

This cactus looks like a dried-up stick most of the year, but this time of year it makes the most beautiful fragrant flowers, that only bloom for one night. Tohono Chul park lets people know when their cactus is getting ready to bloom and then every night until it blooms they hold night viewings. Some Tusconans really go bananas over this kind of thing.

Desert Spiny Lizard Males Fighting

My aunt, who lives about a mile from us, sent us this picture of some great lizard action in her yard. These are Sceloporus magister, desert spiny lizards. The males are each trying to appear bigger and stronger than each other and to show off their blue belly patches. The Sceloporus genus is one of the most successful in North America. They have radiated into almost every above-ground niche to be found--trees, rocks, crevices, grass, shrubs. They can co-exist with each other as long as there is just a subtle niche difference. These desert spiny's co-exist with an almost identical species, Clark's spiny lizard, Sceloporus clarkii because the magisters prefer ground rocks and the clarkiis prefer tree trunks.

I have been patiently nursing my way through Hobart M. Smith's 1946 Handbook of Lizards: Lizards of the United States and Canada. I only read about one lizard description per nursing session and I compare what I read to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians and Peterson's Western Reptiles and Amphibians. Reading the descriptions of field herping in Southeastern Arizona in the 1930s is fascinating; I imagine how many more herps were encountered in such endeavors than could be found today. The thought is both sad and exhilirating. How exciting it must have been to be a herper when the land was rich with critters. I must temper the sadness with hope that people are changing how they think about those beings who continue to share this Earth with us--the survivors.

One interesting thing I recently read in Smith's book about Sceloporus is that the females have a pale white belly without blue patches, except for exceptionally old, large females who may show a pale outline hinting of blue. My friend Jen told me that the more kids you have, the darker and coarser your hair gets. And after menopause, many women grow faint (or obvious) mustaches and beards. So we share this in common with the female spiny lizards, the tendancy to masculanize as we age. Which leads me to think that while we all start off physically as females in the womb, we all end up man-like in the tomb. If we are all borne of womyn, we must also be borne of men; there is no getting around this fact!

Critter Country

The critters are out in full swing at our new property on West Calle Concordia. As I write this I am looking out the window at the myriad of critters that have come to eat our bird block. We basically have created a McDonald's at our house. There are five mourning doves, five English sparrows, and a pair of Gambel's quail. The block is also visited by white-wing doves, Northern cardinals, pyrroloxia, thrashers, Gila woodpeckers, round-tailed ground squirrels, and rabbits. It's a cheap way to get a wildlife show. We also put out a water dish, which the rabbits enjoy.

On the reptile front we have seen Clark's spiny lizards, western whiptails, ornate tree lizards, Meditteranean geckos, a Gila monster, a Sonoran gopher snake, and a desert kingsnake. Insects are way more diverse here than at our old house. Kissing bugs are Erik's new nightmare. There is a peculiar bug that looks like a cross between a praying mantis, a fly, and a wasp--I must get a picture of that one. Last night there was a gloriously huge wolf spider on our ceiling. It looked like a baby tarantula--hairy and thick. Here are some highlights.

Beautiful kingsnake found the other night. Looks healthy. Erik let it go on the front patio.

We think this is a Urosaurus. Must be only a couple days old at most. Found in the pool! :(

Big guy. Gorgeous. Erik put it outside.

Cactus Rose

Now I know why they call it the cactus rose. And the image of a dusty rose seems so beautiful now too. I never really got the whole "rose thang." My Nana liked porcelain roses. My old boss liked roses because he had traveled to Afghanistan and had seen the old Arabian style rose gardens. To me they always seemed too stuffy, too royal, too decadent. I like earthy flowers, like lavender and wild roses.

The tissue thin petals of the cactus rose soften my heart when I see them. The rest of the year when I see cactus, I tend to think of how brutal they are with their spines. But this time of year they are so tender and vulnerable. I could easily rip off every flower and not get punished by their spines. Even when they fruit, I still have to battle the spines to get to the sweet pulp. But right now they just have these delicate blooms that no one can cut off and put into a vase.

Cabbage Aphids (Brevicoryne brassicae)

It started so innocently. One day I noticed a few aphids on the tip of a flowering stalk on one of my collard plants. I cut that tip off, but noticed another tip with aphids on them. I thought to myself, "Here's an opportunity to observe nature in action. Predator versus prey. Can the plant protect itself? Will parasitic wasps and ladybugs and lacewings move in and lay waste to this enemy?"

The parasitic wasps and ladybugs did move in and make a valiant effort, but not before the population of aphids exploded on my patch of collards. Aphids are literally born pregnant, but that is not the end of the chain. The fetus inside is also pregnant! So each aphid bumbling and slurping up the precious phloem in the plant is pregnant with her own granddaughter!

Aphids that prey on Brassica oleracea (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and kin) can convert the plant's own defense chemical, glucosinolate, into a kind of mustard oil that can deter some predators, such as larval two-spotted ladybugs.

Aphids in the garden patch in spring are a sign of a cool spring, because some of the predators, like lacewing larvae, will not hatch out until the temperatures are consistently warmer. As the weather warms up going into summer, the aphids die back anyway because the symbiotic bacteria that help them digest their sappy meals cannot tolerate higher temperatures.

Yesterday I pulled out any remaining straggly collard plants. I had already harvested seeds about a month ago from the plants that bolted before the aphid attack. Since we started focusing on buying a house with my parents a few months ago, I ceased to plant new garden beds. I still have my Indian onions growing and some cucumber young plants that got planted before we really decided to make the move. The onions will get moved and I will ask our rentors if they want to keep the cucumbers. The collard bed is a sunken bed, just like the others--I realized that it is one of the best ways to garden in the desert. The earth in the collard bed is dark and soft, so beautiful; I am sad to leave it. Erik wants me to top off the depression, which means covering it with the sandy gravely compacted dirt that I had so laboriously removed when pregnant with Micah. Once covered up, that lovely loamy earth underneath will be like prime real estate for all the weeds that roam this area-- Bermuda grass, wild mustard, cheeseweed, spiderling.

And yet, there are always more seeds, more opportunities, waiting to be planted and nurtured, tended to and cared for. Why lament the end of a garden plot? Because then it really meant something. It had a purpose; it fed us and taught us and showed us stuff about life and the universe. And then it got attacked. And then I finished its life. Yes, I, killed my garden. The aphids and I; I and the aphids.

Herpetology and Herpes

I have herpes. Herpes zoster, that is--the one in the top middle. I guess most of us have it. But mine is active again. My immune system got too stressed. (From what? I don't know! Moving into a new house with my parents and mothering two small boys? Nah, couldn't be!) The herpes reactivated.

In my quest to heal I researched herpes viruses and found out that the root word for herpes, herpein, is Greek for creeping. Herpetology, therefore, must be the science of creeping creatures!

Anyway, to add insult to injury I have been infected with a stomach virus, possibly roto or noro. The nausea comes over me in violent waves, not unlike labor. It almost feels as if the virus is affecting my brain's nausea response versus the lining of my stomach (or maybe it is both). Nonetheless, there is an emotional effect from this stomach virus. The herpes virus mostly just affects my skin, but I can also feel stabbing pain shooting along that spinal nerve. Aaaaahhh!!!

Spring arrives

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Spring has arrived in Tucson. Sure, it still gets bone-chillingly cold at night. But the days are very gentle, inviting us to stay outside just a little longer. Most of Erik's native garden still looks brown and dormant, with a few exceptions. The bees are very thankful for my collard greens blooming. Thank God for Brassica! A bright spot and tasty food in an otherwise sea of less useful plants!

Another sign of Spring is that it is planting time. Plant your summer garden now. Plant your tomatoes and your peppers. My garden has evolved in just the short year and a half that it has existed. I believe I have completed one full year of gardening. Yea me! The garden was wonderful while I was pregnant. Pick-axing the bermuda thatch and shoveling the hard-packed desert ground provided just the right amount of physical exertion when I needed it.

At first I planted the seeds in rows with troughs between them, the way I assume is the "standard" way of gardening. Standard don't work too good in the desert! So I dug out square shaped depressions and filled those with a mixture of compost, manure, dirt, and straw. Then I just randomly planted the seeds or seedlings. That's how I successfully grew the beautiful patch of collards that I use to feed my Corucia!

I also grew a patch of radishes, but found the radishes were too plentiful in supply (that's a good thing!) and they ended up getting very bloated and hollow. Fortunately, that variety, French Breakfast (I love that name, because of the image it conjures) doesn't get too spicy or bitter when it gets old. I sliced some of them up into thin strips and poured a little oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper on them and it was darn good!

Once the patch had been de-radished it made the perfect spot for the Indian onions given to my husband by his co-worker. These little bulbs are pretty much full size, but with a little luck they will form dense mats of tiny, tasty onions.

Argentine ants

Ants have invaded my reptile cage, the tropical humid one, to be more specific. Ants are in Berman's cage. Berman is a Solomon Islands Prehensile-tailed Skink, also known as a monkey tail skink, Corucia zebrata. He shares his cage with a Solomon Islands ground skink, Eugongylus albofasciolatus. Their tropical climate ecosystem that they call home is like an oasis in the Sahara desert for the Argentine ants. You know which ant I'm talking about. The one that gets in your kitchen trash, especially if there is something wet and sweet in it. The ones that invaded the trash cans in your junior high school. Pretty much the only ant you've ever seen unless you go camping and notice the bugs. Why are they so ubiquitous? Who are they?

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile, formerly Iridomyrmex humilis) do indeed come from Argentina. They have invaded fairly the whole world, probably with the help of people. Wherever they go they tend to displace native ants, which can affect plants that depend on native ants for pollination and lizards that specialize in native ants, such as the coastal horned lizard. But surprisingly, the ants don't pillage and plunder the native ant colonies as they sweep across the praries. All they need... is love.

Argentine ants are so successful because neighboring colonies do not fight with each other, like most ants do. Individuals roam freely among unrelated colonies and help each other with their work. They take each others' food without need for repayment. In this way they form supercolonies that can rapidly spread. Queens intermingle as well, often foraging with their workers. Argentine ants tend to upset the balance of native ants who form more tightly knit colonies that are constantly at war with the other tightly knit colonies. The Argentine ants can outcompete the native ants in searching for food and colony location. And if a battle should break out, unrelated colonies will defend each other. Their sheer numbers coupled with already heavily disrupted ecosystems, such as those along the California coast, create a recipe for disaster, with respect to native ant populations.

When I visited Biosphere II about 15 years ago, the experimental space station built near Tucson, the "scientists" had been out for at least a few years. As a budding biologist, I was fascinated with the idea of living in there, like living in one of my reptile cages! I thought the rain forest was beautiful and the grasslands looked lovely. I imagined how the scientists woke up every day and tended to their chickens and pigs and then took data on the plants and fish. As we toured around the outside of the Biosphere (no one was allowed in) and peeked into the windows, we couldn't help but notice the double row of busyness marching all along the entire base of the space capsule. Someone asked the guide about it and she said that was a recent problem and they hadn't worked out all the kinks yet. Apparently not, as it was one of the few animals to breech the security gate.

What can we learn from the Argentine ant? Give peace a chance and we can conquer the world? Perhaps, and yet... if all the peaceful people succeeded in ridding the world of war, would it be a better world? Maybe we need some warring people to keep us awake. A little bit of yang in the yin! Therefore, enjoy your battles because they may be your last! You might be overrun with boring peaceful people who want to share food and support each other!

Almost Christmas in Tucson

The weather is presenting us with postcard images of Tucson at Christmas.

Winter

Phainopepla

Winter arrived rather peacefully this year. No dramatic storms or sudden drops in temperature. Just a slow ratchet down of the temperature, which was hardly noticed until suddenly I realized that the concrete outside is ALWAYS cold on my bare feet and the garden hadn't been watered in a couple weeks without any drooping from the radish and collard leaves.

Female/Juvenile Black-throated Sparrow

Winter feels very congested in so many ways. The sky is thick with clouds and buildings are thick with people. The outdoors greet me with a whoosh of cold air every time I open the door. In spite of this, the fall annuals are sprouting between the river rocks and lava rocks that cover the front yards of so many Tucsonans. Tiny green cotyledons, the size of the "8" on your keyboard, burst forth in spite of the loom of frost in our future. Erik says they are next spring's annuals. I guess that means they can survive frost, which seems remarkable to me.

Winter seems the season for birds. I notice them most frequently, as the reptiles are mostly hunkered down, except for some of this season's babies, trying to get one more meal in to make it through the coldest weeks. The insects are all but gone, except for a freak grasshopper, household guests, and occasional miniscule UFOs. Now the bird songs sound sharper and crisper against the cold dry empty air.