The Life of Bugs

I promised a blog post about my small jars when they came out of the kiln, but I am going to wait until the last couple come out of glaze firing we did this weekend. In the meantime in between making pots, we have been spending many evenings working on our yard and gardens. We have been have a problem with bugs eating our basil and the leaves of our cone flowers. We spray with an all natural bug repellent and have had mixed results. I decided that what we needed were praying mantis!  

I ordered a habitat cub that came with to mantis pods. The cup is filled with a straw like material and the pods rest on top of it. We kept them on the peninsula in the kitchen where we could check on them a few times a day.

One pod hatched on Saturday afternoon, nineteens days after they were delivered. It's hard to see, but inside that cup are at least a hundred baby praying mantis. You have to release them within a day of hatching or they will start to eat each other. We put half on our flowers and herbs in the front of the house, the rest we released in the vegetable garden, and among the blackberries.

Sunday we could still find little babies crawling over the plants. They even seemed to have grown overnight. Now we will wait for the second pod to hatch. If we are lucky these little bug eaters will grow up and produce more over time.

Bugs & Birds

Yesterday there was a new visitor to the hummingbird feeder...

One of the hummingbirds was not impressed with him. He flew in and pecked at the praying mantis a few times, then settled on the opposite side to drink. I think he chose the feeder on the porch for the rest of his meals.

By late afternoon the praying mantis climbed down from the tube and settled on the perch. When I woke up this morning he was still there, but hanging upside down from the bottom of the feeder. I think they are the most fascinating bugs!

Meanwhile, on the pottery front, the kiln was firing and we took advantage of the cooler, drier air and did some studio cleaning. The place was a mess since the rush to get to NH this summer. There is more work to do but it was looking much more organized by the end of the day.