Entertaining Myself outside the US Embassy
Sunday, July 03, 2011
The city of Brasilia is younger than I am. It was not laid out until 1956, by which time I was in 1st grade. The idea was to encourage the development of Brazil’s interior by placing a new capital smack in the middle of undeveloped territory. Today, the metropolitan area boasts over three million people, but its recent agrarian past was evident in the Brachiaria that dominated all of the non-landscaped areas. This part of Brazil was largely settled by immigrants from Germany and Italy, but the Brachiaria came from Africa. Brought in as high-protein forage for cattle, it has pushed out the native flora.
As is often the case, the field of Brachiaria had also become home to several hills of leaf-cutter ants, probably Atta cephalotes. I found a column of these ants moving up and down a young mango tree, but they weren’t moving any cargo. I have seen them, overnight, strip the leaves from a bigger tree than this one, but perhaps these workers, like me, were simply out for a late-afternoon stroll while the rest of the family did something inside the embassy.
Next I investigated a long wall heavily colonized by the Brown Widow Spider, Latrodectus geometricus. Each of the females rested under a little awning; so that I wasn’t sure what I had I dislodged one. The one male I saw rested out front in a web more condensed and full of trash than the Black Widows we have in California. The egg sac is also distinct, covered with little bumps. I captured one female to use later for studio portraits.
The landscaped areas in front of the embassy have several short palm trees. I gave each some careful inspection, in hopes of finding a jumping spider, but instead I found this wasp nest. It was now late enough that the wasps—possibly yellowjackets—were inside for the night. I was happy to leave them there. I photographed the nest from several angles, which prompted a visit from the embassy security guard, who reminded me politely that I was not to point my camera at the embassy itself.
About this time my family reappeared, my grandson registered in time to celebrate his first 4th of July. However, before we left Brasilia, we took a drive through the downtown, including a pass around three sides of the congressional building (Palacio do Congress) and one corner of the presidential office (Palacio do Planalto), the supreme court, and the national cathedral. That’s the nice thing about having travel as a hobby, it can be indulged almost anywhere.Open-air Arthropodarium on a Charlotte Corday
Saturday, June 25, 2011
School is out, so it's catch-up time here at Capers. All the thoughts and observations that I've carried around since things accelerated in March can finally find a place to land.
In the few minutes I could snatch here or there over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been enjoying a hedge of passion vines and grapes that I started last summer. Over the winter, I covered (and saved) some of the passion vines with clear plastic, and learned a lesson from what I never got covered. A freeze came on suddenly just before Thanksgiving. Then the winter turned mild but wet. The rains continued longer than I can ever remember. I covered a length of about 16 feet (8 to 10 feet high), but I never quite got the plastic as far as the P. amethyst. It survived the worst cold and still had green on it until almost the end March, but then it died. I have since read that some prefer dry ground when it is cold. I replaced the dead one as soon as Lowes put the spring vines out, and next winter I will cover it.
The section I protected included the bright red P. vitafolia, the maracuya-bearing P. frederick, and what the big-box home-improvement center had labeled as P. victoria (which is lavender), but turns out to be one of the whites, either ‘Charlotte Corday,’ or ‘Constance Elliott.’ Until someone corrects me, I will go with the former, named for the ‘Angel of Assassination’ who went to the guillotine for stabbing-to-death Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in his bath-tub. She hoped it would end the Reign of Terror. In actuality, it turned them each into martyrs, one for each side, but among Reign-of-Terror floral remembrances, this flower stands out as perhaps the most delicate. As a history teacher, it’s hard to imagine planting anything in my yard with more history than that.
The white one has been blooming for a couple of months, and has set dozens of fruit. The vitafolia and frederick just began blooming last week. The primary pollinators for passion flowers are bumble bees. In our area, that’s the Valley Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa veripuncta. I see them mainly in the late afternoon, most often two of the black females, and occasionally a single tan-orange male. He seems mostly to be checking things out, and I don’t see him land anywhere. They don’t seem to mind either me or the camera, and when the females are intent on a flower, they let me approach within four or five inches.
The bees are just the right height to brush under the five overhanging anthers, picking up pollen on their backs, and carrying it to deposit against the three stigmas. They seem to prefer the whites, visit the frederick only after several visits to each of the available white blossoms, and show no interest at all in the vitafolia.
I first encountered an insectarium at the Berlin zoo, misnamed though, because it housed and displayed both insects (I saw my first walking stick) and spiders (I saw my first Argiope). Spiders are not insects, but both are arthropods. A better name for such a display therefore is "arthropod
arium."
In early June, I began seeing a California Hairstreak Satyrium.
A week later, the first Gulf Fritillary arrived.
The Argentine Ant tends to dominate my yard, but so far I have not seen them tending herds of scale insects.
So far, I have seen four species of spiders in my hedge.
Cheiracanthium mildei needed no introduction: It was already everywhere.
Of the spiders that show up as hedge residents, my two favorites are jumping spiders (family Salticidae). The male Thiodina hespera took exception to being photographed, but I will have the rest of the summer to get a clearer picture. This was the species that first attracted my attention and launched my interest in spiders, some 37 years ago, so we are old friends. Back then, using my first set of close-up lenses, I took my first spider pictures and sent them off to a scholar studying this genus. In those days, the species had no name, and I heard recently that the specialist considered naming the species after me. I don't think my little investigations would have justified that, but it helps explain why I consider this Thiodina almost a member of the family.
The second jumping spider was a female Sassacus vitis. She appeared just after a microscope I had ordered arrived in the mail. She thereby won the right to be my first subject under the new apparatus. On a leaf, her iridescent scales would catch the sun and cast a glint of golden bronze. She is loose again on my hedge, and I will try again to catch a picture of that glint.
The summer and my hedge are still young. I will be traveling some, and trying to write for a portion of each day. But my microscope is brand new, my arthropodarium is just beginning, and school doesn't start for another eight weeks. Life is sweet.
Heaven is for Real (and Takes Visitors)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
This post reviewed the book Heaven Is for Real, by Todd Burpo. I have removed it for for reconsideration.
The Back of Duke Snider's Head
Monday, February 28, 2011
The report today of Duke Snider’s passing brings two small memories to mind, though most of his Hall-of-Fame career (1947-1964) was before my time and on the other side of the continent.
My Time with baseball started in 1959, the Dodgers’ second year out of Brooklyn. My Cub Scout den drove downtown to the Coliseum to watch the Dodgers host Cincinnati. I would have been nine, and I’m not even sure Snider played. I remember Pee Wee Reese, Wally Moon, and Gil Hodges. It was still the core of the team that had come from back east, and Snider was one of its most fabled players, but I hadn’t yet caught the fever. We sat in way-yonder center field seats where Snider would have been the nearest player in front of us, so maybe I spent nine innings staring at the back of his head. However, my two strongest memories are how far from the game we actually were, and how fast the Reds’ Vada Pinson could run from home to first on a single.
I didn’t really become a baseball fan until the Kaufax-Drysdale-Wills teams of the mid-60s. By then, the Dodgers had moved from the Coliseum to their own stadium, and Snider had moved to the Mets, Giants, and retirement. It was then I finally saw the Duke up close.
Off-season, Snider made his home in Fallbrook, California, rooted for the local high school athletic teams, farmed avocados, and attended the Methodist church. My own family had tried weekend avocado ranching near Fallbrook. My cousins attended high school there, and played baseball. They also attended the Methodist church, and I heard frequent mention of Duke Snider.
One Sunday, we made the trip to the Fallbrook church. My mother’s favorite, but long-retired pastor was making a guest appearance. As I took a seat, my cousin pointed at the man in front of me. “That’s Duke Snider,” he whispered. I spent the next hour looking at the back of the great man’s head. Afterwards, Snider got up and left and my mother pulled me up front to show me off to her pastor.
There you have it: a baseball great passes on to the ages and my two strongest memories are of the back of his head. Rest In Peace, Duke.
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