Preying Mantis

I tend to mark the seasons by natural events rather than the civil calendar.  Thus spring starts when the peepers begin to sing, summer begins when the lightening bugs appear & ends when they stop rising of an evening, fall is marked by the end of new growth & the falling of the leaves, and winter is the season of frozen ground.  Each season has its own cycle of natural events, with summer the Time of  Critters.

This little fellow is about 18” long & hanging out around my kitchen stoop.  It has an all black friend that’s a few inches longer & likes the same area.

I came home from work one morning to find this crawling down my driveway.  I carried it over the creek behind the house away from roads & lawns with mowers.

I’d heard rusting near the Norfolk pine stump for most of May – here’s the source of the sound.  Its about 6” long.

These little guys typically hatch out the last week of May & the first week of June.  Its about 1/2 inch long, so its molted once already.

If you couldn’t see the little fella, here’s a blow up.

Here’s another one taken later on – I saw half a dozen of these on this one plant.

The heat is Ugly right now.  Last night there was a heat advisory until almost 10 PM.  That is just not right.  Not even for Virginia.  I have gotten the fans mounted in my kitchen windows & the room AC installed in my bedroom window, so I’m about as comfortable as I’m going to get.

Prayers for weather in the 80’s occurs daily.