Damselflies

“Look at this creature on my arm,” said my husband. He was floating in the lake, upheld by a purple noodle, a few feet from the dock. “It looks like a tiny dragon or a lobster.”

                               

I swam over. The bug on his arm—yes, definitely a bug—was tan, had six legs, and an incredible thin tail (or other body part?). It was no more than an inch long. I couldn’t identify it for certain. The bug soon jumped ship –or arm.

Later, we found another of those bugs on the dock. “But it’s dead,” said my husband.

I saw a couple of empty exoskeletons of dragonflies attached to the edge of the dock. I had researched them the previous year. Their bodies are also tan, but wider, shorter and shield-shaped. 

I began to wonder. Perhaps this “bug” is the nymph form of a damselfly? Although the damselflies look much like dragonflies in flight, the damselfly has a narrower tail and folds its wings when it settles. The dragonfly keeps its double wings open. But could the nymph stage of these related insects—both of order Odonata—be so different?

The next day I found two dozen empty exoskeletons clinging to the edge of the dock. And four pairs of delicate, electric blue damselflies flew in tandem, just skirting the water. “Those MUST be the empty shells of the damselflies’ nymph stage,” I told my husband.

A little research on the Internet proved the hypothesis. I remain amazed that those beautiful blue insects emerged from such an unattractive, wingless, and tinier shell. I have watched a Monarch Butterfly emerge from its chrysalis and then pump up its wings from two centimeters to their full length—truly an ordinary miracle. I hope someday to be lucky enough to see a damselfly emerge from its exoskeleton. Till then, I can’t do better than this You Tube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcY9LQhdzkA

In Search of Water Lilies

Monday

         I want to do a detailed drawing of lily pads. The people who’ve assigned flowers to each month attributed the lily for July—my birth month. Maybe that’s why those flowers fascinate me. It’s kismet.

           

          I load up the canoe—my glasses, a Bristol pad, two pencils, a canteen of water, two paddles—“for insurance” I tell my husband, and an anchor, so I can sit relatively still among the lilies.  I fasten on my required life preserver and cast off.

         

          Immediately the canoe’s prow turns north, exactly opposite to where I want to go. I paddle as hard as I can to turn the boat against the strong wind and current from the south end of the lake. After 50 yards in the wrong direction, I manage to face the canoe into the wind. It’s a fight just to keep it straight and bring it back to our own dock. The wind insists it will only let me progress if I go north.

         

          Guess the lilies will have to wait till the wind changes its mind.


Wednesday

                A steady wind blew all Monday and Tuesday. Today it seems to have died down a bit. I stow my gear on the canoe and set out again. This time I’m able to paddle upwind — south.  I get half way down the lake, almost to the lily pads when the wind picks up and with it, the waves. They force the canoe broadside and I’m pushed back 100 yards. In spite of my best efforts to turn the prow south, all I turn is circles. I see no one on the lake or shore, but if anyone is watching, they must be laughing.

          I waited two days to get this close to the water lilies. I refuse to give up. I paddle as hard as I can, switching quickly from side to side and make slow progress south. Fighting the wind all the way, I finally arrive amidst the lily pads and drop anchor.

          If I thought the lily pads would lie still and pose for my sketch, I was very mistaken. Of course each grouping I concentrate on ripples with the water and too often I spin right over the lilies. After forty-five minutes I decide I have enough of a drawing to work on back home. Besides, I fear I’ll become seasick if I spin around much more.

          I yank on the anchor but it doesn’t budge. I settle into the bottom of the canoe and pull again. Nothing. The anchor is twisted about a grouping of lilies. I certainly don’t want to destroy my subject by uprooting them—but that doesn’t seem possible anyway. I consider leaving the anchor. Without a knife I can’t cut the thick rope and hate to leave anchor and eight yards of good rope—most of which sits coiled in the canoe, the lake’s no more than eight feet deep here—at the bottom of the lake. I pull the canoe directly over the tangled lilies and unwind the rope in the direction opposite the tangle. Then, after the third tug, I feel the anchor begin to lift. What a relief!

          There’s little need to paddle now; I merely have to keep the canoe facing north to let the wind and current bring me home. Someday, when the lake is like glass, I’ll try again. Maybe the water lilies will hold a pose then.

Rainbow Weather

A family across the street generously invited everyone on the block to a potluck pool party last Sunday to welcome two new families who moved onto our block this spring. The party began at 3:00.  At 3:15 it began to rain. Adults rushed to get the food from the exposed table to one on the patio, under an awning. Children reluctantly left the pool at the insistence of parents when thunder accompanied a harder rain.

Our spirits were not the least bit dampened. If anything, the party was a bit more cozy for all the neighbors packed onto the patio.

Then the sun returned—sort of, because it kept on drizzling. I jumped off the patio to get an eastward view. One neighbor, Mara, was already standing in the sunlight.

“You’re another rainbow chaser,” I said to her. “This is rainbow weather.”

“It is!” she agreed.

Two years ago, when the sun had burst through clouds during a shower, both Mara and I had rushed into the street looking for a rainbow. And we had found it at the east end of the block, arching over the park. But now there was no rainbow in sight.

“There should be,” said Mara.

The party over, I returned home and kicked off my wet sandals. The phone rang almost immediately.

“There’s a rainbow,” said Mara’s voice.

“Wow! See you outside.”

We met in the middle of the street—both of us barefoot. And there, at the eastern end of the block was a rainbow, arching over the park.

Definitely rainbow weather.

Growing Wild

I need a good recipe for weeds.  They are growing better than the vegetables in my garden. Using weeds for food would be sustainable and easier than digging them all up repeatedly. In truth, I do have a terrific recipe for one weed, dill; it’s cucumber soup with dill weed.  But if I let the dill grow everywhere it chooses there won’t be any room for the cucumbers. And dill is far from the only offender.  There’s a small succulent weed that has returned to may garden every year in spite of my never allowing it to flower or go to seed.

                Other unwelcome things are growing rapidly. I have frightening thoughts that if I neglected my garden one year, we’d need a bush whacker to enter the backyard. Suddenly there’s a hedge plant growing up—ten feet high—through the middle of a rosa multiflora bush. That bush itself has branched out in every direction. I spent 45 minutes trimming back only half of it and have numerous scratches to prove it.  

                The flowering quince, which had behaved itself for 20 years, tripled in size this spring.  That’s another recipe I need—some way to use quince.  My neighbor tried to make jam with them a few years ago and reported that she had to use so much sugar that it wasn’t worth it. That plant is the first to blossom each spring. Its short-lived beauty is worth it.  

Lake Weather

        Weather at the lake changes so rapidly one can’t assume how it will be from one hour to the next. On Saturday, it was warm and sunny. Luckily, I got in a swim at 11:00. My husband decided he’d wait till it warmed up, but before noon it began to drizzle and within an hour the drizzle grew to a downpour which continued till evening.

               

        “If it’s like this tomorrow,” said my spouse, “we might as well go home.”

        But Sunday—in spite of dire predictions of “possible thundershowers” –remained lovely till twilight. True, overnight there were thundershowers, but those did not put a damper on gardening, swimming, or canoeing.

        So this morning, Memorial Day, fog obscures most of the mountain across the lake. Campers on the Appalachian Trail that passes over that mountain will have to wait to see the vast vistas for which the trail is famous.  But mountain weather is changeable. It’s likely the fog will burn off in a couple of hours. I hope so. It would be nice to swim under a sunny sky again.

        At least the cycle of nature here is predictable, though a bit early by the calendar. The resident swan couple sails regally about, reminding us of their ownership of the south end of the lake.  The lily pads have begun to make an appearance, as have some very few dragonflies and the foliage—including weeds—is lush.

        Ah! The sky is lightening. There are patches of blue. It will be another lovely day—or at least, a lovely morning.

Deep into Spring

I had forgotten how beautiful the lake is. We had stayed away from the lake for almost a month to nurse our cat, MishMish, following her surgery. The lake flashed its smile, almost laughed in the brilliant sunlight. The water was almost warm. The foliage, last time so sparse, was now filled out in many shades of green.  

And the weeds!  Our parking area was embarrassingly over-grown with them. I hate to think what the neighbors say over our neglectful landscaping.  So my husband got out the lawnmower and I put on my gloves and attacked the weeds. Two and a half hours and five buckets-full of weeds later we quit for the day at eight o’clock. The grass is trimmed, but there are still more weeds to remove from the parking area.

“There’s always tomorrow,” I told myself, thinking I’d finish weeding in the morning and clean off with a swim in the lake.

Wrong. We woke up to a drizzle. I pulled two plants of lettuce look-alikes from the garden, added from my compost pile, and planted new seeds—lettuce, zucchini, bush and soy beans. Then the rain came in earnest.  It will, no doubt, help the weeds I hadn’t gotten to to grow taller. More work to look forward to for our next visit.

April Flowers/May Showers

April flowers bring May showers. At least that seems to be what happened this year. I, for one, celebrated the perfusion of blooms this April, and I also celebrate the May rain. 

April had left my newly overturned garden plot bone dry. I was certainly not looking forward to having to continually irrigate in order to plant and nurture my vegetables. And I found myself wondering about the volume of water in our reservoirs. Most winters lay down a blanket of white which slowly melts with spring to fill the streams, rivers, and the reservoirs. But the only real snow came not in winter, but last fall—in October—with a vengeance. Everyone predicted an impossibly brutal winter, but their crystal balls were faulty. And we mercifully, had the mildest winter ever.

But what about the water? With no snow melt to fill the rivers I feared, in April, that we’d have a drought by July. But it seems my crystal ball, too, is faulty. Thank goodness!

Let it rain!