Multiple Personality Disorder

Believe it or not, this is the same butterfly with its wings closed and opened. It is the American Lady butterfly, though this one is male. It spent most of the past two days flitting around on this blooming oregano in my garden. The topside and underside are totally distinct, as if this butterfly couldn't decide who it wanted to be when it grew up. I understand this entirely. For twenty two years, as a nurse I squashed myself into white uniforms, then pantie hose and business suits. On my days off, like Superman in a phone booth, I tore away my suits revealing my true self. Wings closed, wings opened to ripped jeans, T shirts and muck boots. I too, frantically shed the professional garb as if it were life and death. It was, indeed. The live kernel of my creative, primary brain would have perished completely had it not been able to bust out. Come to think of it, this sounds more like The Incredible Hulk than a switch-er-oo butterfly or a more noble superhero. But then, I could be all of them; I no longer have to choose between my multiple personalities. I can just breathe - wings in, wings out.





To find out more about The American Lady, or Hunter's Butterfly, see the May 6, 2009 posting in the archive of this blog.

Eye Candy = Soul Feast

Just a little break from the denizens of the damp, those that lurk, slither, writhe and snap. This is a White Admiral butterfly. On the peony, its wings are open. After it moved to a leaf of Raspberry Wine bee balm, it closed its wings. I took these shots late in the day as the sun was near to setting. The cool evening light brings out the blues in the rhododendron blossoms. These photographs were taken in my garden.

Matters Herpetological

"Back off, Lady! The chick is mine!"

Back to the snakes: A friend who happens to be a very refined woman from Maryland has told me that my snakes from the previous post are males. She said that they were all trying to mate with a female. She actually used the term 'gang-bang.' My friend is the sort of woman who might wear white gloves on occasion, does not raise her voice, drink nor swear. So it's incongruous that she also happens to be a talented wildlife photographer. She was speaking simply factually about the behaviors of snakes as it has been her business to know these things. This prompted me to do some research. I learned that Garter snake males erupt from a communal den when the weather warms to ready themselves for females. Usually, one female appears and they all jump her at once often in a mating ball of sometimes a hundred or so snakes. I was lucky I suppose, that I only saw six. That also explains the hostile nature of the snakes like this one that persisted in staring me in the face! Garter snakes which are usually timid are apt to show complete disregard for potential danger (that would have been little old me) when they are about to mate. There was one snake pictured here that was much larger and darker than the others. That would have been the female, according to my genteel friend from Maryland. The bigger a girl snake, the better the boy snakes like 'em, because a bigger snake lady can produce more baby snakes. So, during mating, females will puff themselves up by hyperventilating to appear so. Males looking for females that are ready to do the deed, recognize her willingness and location by the release of pheromones or chemical changes which occur in her skin secretions. The male picks up this perfume by flickering his tongue up and down the female's body. The courting male rubs his chin faster and faster along the back and side of his girl then aligns his body with hers. Calm down now, all of you! The female will retain the sperm until all the eggs she holds are fertilized. This can take as long as five years so she can give birth whenever and wherever is right. The lady snake will give birth to from 6 to 40 live snakes between July and October depending on when she mated. So, I guess I'd better be looking out! The stone wall below ran the length of the perennial border. That is where the snake colony was over the winter. The molted snake skin was a give away to that under the circumstances. I should have known! In their second year, the young snakes will be ready to repeat the reproductive cycle. In the future, I'll be checking the cracks of that wall very carefully!

Anyone want to make a nice pair of boots or a purse?

Lady Godiva - to a snake, a really hot chick!

"The chicks really dig this move."

Ophidiophobia & Weeding For Dollars

I love gardening. I love it so much, I do my own and I do other people's. My gardening work for others I call Weeding For Dollars. And I earn every nickle. Every season, somebody says to me "Oh, you're so lucky! I would love to work with the flowers all day!" It's not that I'm complaining (well, yes, I am), but they have no idea what they are talking about. First of all, when you do it for other people, you can't just decide after a couple of hours to knock off when your back is killing you and go have lemonade. You have to continue until the work is done. No matter how hot it may be, how many Black Fly bites you have, rashes, Poison Ivy, leaking hoses: you must continue. Today, it was snakes. Mind you, I'm not afraid of snakes. I've caught many of them by hand. I get a certain satisfaction when I get one behind the head so it can't bite me and feel its sinewy body wrap around my wrist, tongue flicking, staring me in the face. But that's on my terms. I do not like being sneaked up on, or 'snaked' up on, as it were. In the garden where I worked today, there was a nest of Garter snakes. I saw six of them. Though they were all Garter snakes, each one was distinct enough that I gave them names: Mo, Curly, Larry, Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo. I don't know what gender they were, but that seemed to cover all their behavioral bases. They dodged, slithered, writhed, curled and slipped around the peonies and astilbes while I worked. Repeatedly startling me, they kicked my anxiety disorder into high gear. Gardening is very hard work, but it's never been as nerve wracking as it was today! I may have advanced my position from a run of the mill herpetophobe to a full blown ophidiophobe.