Some critters from the yard.

Jer and I went running one morning and, upon returning, saw a hawk in the copse of pines at the front corner of the property. Imagine my surprise when, a few days later, one of the same (if not the same) was perched atop my deck table's umbrella!

When the umbrella one flew away I tracked it and saw another specimen sitting on the fence. I guess they're here for all the rabbit and squirrel and groundhog and chipmunk. Good hunting to them. I have yet to identify what kind of hawk these are. Not red tailed, which is the commonest, but I'll figure it out eventually.

This is a big insect, possibly a moth, that was enjoying my petunias on the deck. Jer saw him and told me I had to come look at it. I'm sure glad I did before it got away. It had clear patches in its wings. It also had a long proboscis, greenish or yellowish, but you can't see it in the pics. A google search for "large diurnal moth" tells me that this is almost certainly a clearwing, Hemaris sp., possibly H. diffinis or H. thysbe. Cool, regardless.

 

 

This is a common tableau for under the apple tree in the front yard. Those would be canadian geese and a groundhog. If it's not these critters, it's deer. They all seem to like munching on the green apples that are falling off the tree.

And, lastly, here's a little wren that was just singing its heart out, loudly, when I was in the yard. Some of them are nesting in the box that the flycatcher had nested in earlier this spring.

Congrats, Beth!

It took her six long years to extricate herself from grad school, but she finally did it. I'm so stinkin' happy for her! I truly didn't get much out of grad school, but a brilliant, compassionate, funny and fun friend is probably the best thing I got. I daresay, it even makes it worth it. :)

Thanks a million times, Beth, for being you. You finally made it and it's over, so yay!

Ow, it sparkles!

Guess what I did? I went and riled up a bees' (wasps'?) nest and got stung - a lot. I was all innocently watering some of my plants and must have got some on the nest and pissed them off. Here are the three on the backs of my legs shortly after "the incident". I put a baking soda slurry on them because...something in my head told me to.

 

 

I called Jer out to help me because I could hear I had one (or more) in my hair and I didn't want them to sting me, but he came out too late and one got me on my back. I then discovered I had one (or more) up my shorts and I got two stings on my upper right thigh. They really hurt. Feel sorry for me, but feel sorrier for poor Jasper. They were all over his legs and butt and he probably has a dozen stings. We can't really visualize them, though, and there's not much we can do about it, anyway, so he's just miserable. Especially since he had pretty much just gotten better from his gastrointestinal issues that've been plaguing him for the last three weeks or so. Poor pup.

Once Jer came out, he went and retrieved some anti-bee/wasp spray and sprayed the nest (hive?). It was actually a burrow in the mulch under the maple tree in the back yard. The spraying set them off, again, and Jer got a sting on his finger. Jer then put a rock over the entrance hole and, when all the ones that had flown off came back trying to get in, he sprayed them, too.

Here's the nest, the next day with one live guy above the rock. The lower picture shows two dead ones on the mulch. The internet seems to indicate that these are the infamous yellow jackets. They're wasps and known for their aggressive bad temper.

 

Sleeping that night was quite the adventure as every little thing touching the stings hurt. Furthermore, they throbbed, but not a dull ache kind of throb more like a sharp, stabbing, sparkly kind of throb. For want of a better word. I guess the best way to explain it is to say it felt like I was getting stung more. I think Jasper felt the same way as he would periodically jump up and attack his own feet and legs, but of course nothing was happening to him. Poor guy. Jer managed to get to sleep, but Jasper and I commiserated most of the night. We (or at least I) finally dozed off some time after two in the morning. The next day they still hurt, but not as bad. And then they got itchy and hurty. Not fun. They're also really swollen and hot. Edema, yay. One of the ones on my upper thigh is the worst, but it's hard to get a good picture of it. I measured it, though (of course I did), and it's about 8x10cm. It's also probably a few mm raised.

So that's how I spent my evening. Don't be too jealous! I'm definitely ready for it to subside, already. Especially for Jasper.

I don't know, what do you want to do?

It's been a whopping two weeks since I defended, and it's been glorious! It feels like forever, already, which is amazing and wonderful. I've been sleeping a lot and eating a lot and I started running again, too. Though I think my calories in are still greater than my calories out. Oops.

Anyway, I started my freedom by having to finish up the tweaks on the dissertation. There really weren't that many, so it didn't take me long.

I got myself some new yarn. Pretty, huh? Don't know what I'll do with it, yet...

I finished a shawl that's been several months in the making. It's green and leafy. The pictures make it look bluer than it is, though it is a fairly bluey green. This would seem to have Micki's name on it, though I don't know if she'd want it. I'll find out. 

 

 

I started another shawl, and it's looking nice so far.

I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, on kindle. It was nowhere near as graphic as people seemed to indicate. Yes, there is violence and sex, but it's not really graphic at all. But whatever. I wanted to read it before seeing the movie. I've read that the original Swedish version is far superior to the newer, English version and, since I don't mind subtitles, I'll probably watch that one first and then the newer one second. From having seen previews of the newer one, I definitely feel a disconnect between how Lisbeth Salander looked in my head while reading and who they got to play her. But that's okay. I also read the kindle version of ROOM. It's a story of a woman who was abducted and kept locked up for years by her abductor. She ended up pregnant and the story is told from the POV of her son, aged five in the story, and whose world is literally the size of the room, hence the title. Kind of interesting. Shorter than I thought it would be. Both of the kindle books are thanks to Beth, who kindly gave me amazon money as a graduation gift. I still have some left, too. She defends in two weeks and I have to come up with something suitable for her...

I also finally went to the library and got a library card. Since I was there, I went ahead and grabbed two fiction books (I pretty much only do fiction, but I'm fairly indiscriminate within that genre). I read one in two days (The Whisperer) and haven't started the other, yet. I need to let the other one settle out of my head before starting.

I have really missed reading while in grad school. I'd always been a voracious reader, but I only read a handful of books while a grad student: the last Harry Potter, a random book called Dead Mann Walking that a coworker of Jer's sent home with him (I came home one day to no power, so I read the book, instead), a fantasy book Beth bought me on kindle when Jer and I went on vacation with his parents, and the Hunger Games trilogy which Beth lent me on the kindle. I wanted to read it before we saw the movie and Jer really wanted to see the movie, so it was kind of imperative (haha) that I read it immediately.

We were fortunate to only lose power for about 6 hours (11-5am) because of the storm. Beth and Ricky, however, still didn't have power on Saturday, so came over to be cool at our house. They headed out to get more stuff to bring from their house to ours and their dogs waited for them by the door the whole time they were gone.

The power company website initially said they didn't have a team assigned to fix them, but on Sunday morning (they spent the night) it said the worst-case scenario would have them being fixed by 7/6 (Friday). But their power came back on Sunday afternoon/evening, so they happily headed on home. They came back over for dinner and fireworks Wednesday night, though.

So, overall, it's been delightful being home. I've been getting around to some things around the house that I hadn't had time for, like unpacking the china I brought back from my mother's and putting it away in the hutch. The one with the blue ribbon around was my mother's favourite. She liked blue.

I also saw a frog on the deck one evening. He was pretty good sized and not too worried by me. I sloshed him with water; I don't know how amphibians stay moist in weather like we've been having!

And that's about it. Still jobless. Still applying like crazy. We'll see what happens.