caterpillars, rain
Jun. 27th, 2012 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateSo, we've been more or less seriously behind on rain all year. When last week's icky heat wave broke, we sort of failed to get the nice big thunderstorms here; it rained enough to fill up the front rain barrel, but not to make much of a dent in the rain gauge. And the past few days have been absolutely gorgeous-- windy and not too hot, and, unfortunately, bone dry. The leaves on the trees are paper thin and crinkly; not dead yet, but conserving their moisture, which for a just-hatched caterpillar who gets all its moisture out of the leaves it eats is a problem. It is possible that all the lunas are dead by now, though I haven't poked through all their leaves to make sure. The others, slightly younger and slightly larger, are hanging in there so far, but I have no idea what will happen when the leaves they have now get stale enough that I have to replace them. The weather report claims a 20% chance of thunderstorms on friday or sunday, but if we see any it'll be the first time a small percent chance panned out since I've lived here.
The baby wrens are big enough that their little gaping beaks show through the hole in the birdhouse, and their parents have been bringing all sorts of tasty treats, from flies and spiders to 2-inch-long bright green mantids. So clearly something is thriving.
As for myself, I am presently excelling in half-finished tasks (the dishes are clean but not put away; I've sorted a large stack of various paperwork but not taken it down the file cabinet; I have gotten extremely tired of knitting about 8 rows from the end of the shawl...) but I have chopped up card stock to try plot resorting with. Cream & Gray for Caroline & Mara respectively, blue for Theo (since he's the only boy viewpoint character thus far) and pink for Jennet because my exciting colors of ink weren't going to show up on red. I've already resorted one time-line somewhat helpfully; we'll see how the rest of it goes.
The baby wrens are big enough that their little gaping beaks show through the hole in the birdhouse, and their parents have been bringing all sorts of tasty treats, from flies and spiders to 2-inch-long bright green mantids. So clearly something is thriving.
As for myself, I am presently excelling in half-finished tasks (the dishes are clean but not put away; I've sorted a large stack of various paperwork but not taken it down the file cabinet; I have gotten extremely tired of knitting about 8 rows from the end of the shawl...) but I have chopped up card stock to try plot resorting with. Cream & Gray for Caroline & Mara respectively, blue for Theo (since he's the only boy viewpoint character thus far) and pink for Jennet because my exciting colors of ink weren't going to show up on red. I've already resorted one time-line somewhat helpfully; we'll see how the rest of it goes.