The Wasp

A couple of weeks ago I had noticed three wasp nests in the 4 foot tall junipers that form a hedge in the parkway on the west side of the driveway. That sidewalk passage had become narrower with the bougainvillea growing out on one side and the juniper on the other. I also wanted to work on getting rid of the bermuda grass growing along the sidewalk underneath the juniper. It was lucky I saw the nests before I disturbed them. They were towards the top, hanging upside down as usual, but pretty well hidden. I wanted to knock them off and bring them into school for the kids to observe, as I've done in the past, but I got busy with all the other things that needed to be done at the beginning of the school year and just didn't take the time to get them.

This morning I saw that the bermuda grass was starting to grow back again. It's so hard to get all of those roots, especially when you can't really dig down. The junipers have been there for a long time and are dense, growing right to the edge of the sidewalk. But I thought if I stayed on top of the situation at least it wouldn't look quite as bad as I had let it get to in the past. So I grabbed a trowel and worked away, carefully, trying not break the roots but pull them out whole, if possible. It gave me great satisfaction when I could pull out a relatively thick, white main root. I know this job will never be done, they will always be there because I won't spray any kind of selective herbicide. But that' s OK.

While I was working I noticed again the wasp nests. Early in the morning is the best time to knock down nests while the wasps are still cool and slow moving. Though it was 11 AM and a warm day I thought I could handle the situation. I got a broom and a container. I used the broom handle to knock down the most accessible nest. It fell just a couple of inches to the next level of branches below. I stepped back as the wasps flew off in many directions. The nests I've collected in the past have been along the path to the front door, attached to the extension of the roof that covers the path. I would knock the nest down then leave it alone for hours allowing the wasps to realize that their nest was no longer viable and leave permanently. But in this situation I thought I might forget about the nest since it wasn't really visible if you didn't know it was there. So I pressed forward on my mission. I had put the broom down when I stepped away but picked it up again to continue maneuvering the nest so that I could pick it up. But when I grabbed the broom I didn't look first and my hand wrapped around a wasp resting on the handle, stinging me in the soft area between the thumb and index finger. Man oh man, that sting really hurt. I hurried to get some hydrogen peroxide. I poured it over the sting then poured it on a paper towel which I wrapped around my hand. At least it was my left hand. I held that paper towel in place while I finished my nest gathering and then off to the hardware store, Trader Joe's, then school. It felt fine by the time I got to school.

When I took the container out of the plastic grocery bag at school I saw a wasp inside. It had to have emerged after I had put the nest in the container because there hadn't been any wasps there when I put it in. I took the container over to the gate into the garden. I crouched down and opened the container. These insects are really slow moving when they first emerge so I knew it wouldn't fly out. I reached in and picked up the nest by the slender "handle" which attaches the nests in place. Putting it on the concrete area outside the gate I knocked it a little to knock the wasp off. He slowly walked along and then up the one brick high step into the garden and under the chain link gate. I turned my attention briefly to putting the nest back in the container. Then I looked back again to check on the wasp. He was still just inside the gate, on the brick, and it looked like he had started to hide himself in what appeared to be an open section of bark from one of the tree stumps that I had lined up along that section of fencing. But that piece of bark moved and I quickly realized that the front of the wasp was in the mouth of a lizard. This brought a quiet "Whoaaa!" to my lips. As the lizard immediately zipped away I thought, "He's not bothered by the sting, or his bite is just right to avoid it."

This garden has been a real locus of wildlife action. And one of the events happened right at the little tree stump where the wasp was caught. It was last year, at the end of our class time in the garden for that day. Most of the students had exited to put their tools away in the workroom and wait for me to dismiss them to the classroom. On my way out the gate I noticed a lizard on the 2 foot tall tree stump. He was on the side opposite to me, with his head even with the top of the stump. I was surprised that he didn't move away since I was within a foot from him. But then I saw why he didn't move. There were insects, sort of orangish colored, climbing out of cracks in the top to the wood and flying away. Or the ones that the lizard didn't catch were flying away. It was amazing how quickly this reptile moved. In a heartbeat he was up and grabbing and chewing then back into position for the next prey.

There were a few students who had tarried to help me with checking to make sure all of the tools were picked up and everything was put away properly. I called them over. We watched with delight and fascination our live wildlife nature event.

The scrub jay, and a hot day at the end of August

After coming back from seeing "Taking Woodstock" with Janice and Brian I stopped by to pick up my latest favorite salad from Trader Joe's, Artichoke and Palm Heart with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Yummy. It had been a triple digit day and it was still hot at 5 PM, but I wanted to eat outside in the shade. The scrub jay, a regular visitor, came by to perch on the lip of a wrought iron plant stand, presently plant-less, seven feet away. He waited patiently while I ate, with the dogs sitting or lying at my feet waiting for that chance stray piece of lettuce to fall. Towards the end of my meal he moved to the rump of a 16" tall brass horse, just 3 feet from me. It was great to be able to look at him so closely, to see the details of his feathers, and feet, and eyes, and beak. He began making his little chirp/cluck kind of sound and I saw that the other scrub jay had flown to the top of a nearby juniper.

I finished the salad and grabbed the peanut jar and put some peanuts in the scrub jays' bowl. After stepping away the first scrub jay came down quickly to grab one and fly off, to eat it or bury it, who knows.

At school we have scrub jays who come to visit the acrylic bird feeder attached outside to our window. I told the kids that scrub jays are an example of sexual dimorphism, where there is no visible difference between the male and female. I preceded this piece of information by telling them I was going to use a word that might make them giggle or laugh because they don't usually hear this in mixed company, or with an adult. But that it's a scientific word, and that's how it's being used. I've found that instead of springing a word that might make 7th graders feel uncomfortable, like sex, if I give a little introduction first I may still get some giggles but the reaction is much better than if I hadn't given the preview.

We went on to talk about scrub jays being in the crow family and that crows are also sexually dimorphic. And how that's different than, say, a peacock and a pea hen. Or even the goldfinches who were visiting the wild sunflowers that had grown up over the summer in the garden just outside our schoolroom back door. The difference between the male and female goldfinches though was more subtle.

I was telling Jane, the rescuer of squirrels and opossums and a variety of birds, about this conversation with the kids and she said that you can tell the difference between male and female in scrub jays. Well, either I'm only seeing one gender, which just doesn't seem likely, or they're like the goldfinch and the difference isn't obvious to the less astute observer. And actually the kids are better at telling the difference between the two scrub jays that visit us at school. Last year they named them Peanuts and Electric Blue. When one or the other visited the kids would have quick discussions on which one it was till they came to a consensus. This can be a bit disruptive to a math lesson, but well worth it, and the kids know when it's time to get back to work and they're really good about it. At Back To School Night last Wednesday even some of the parents had positive things to say about the stories their kids are bringing home about our scrub jays. This makes me happy...

As the World (Wide Web) Turns

From the NY Times, Aug. 25, 2009 "We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks."MICHAEL SNOW, chairman of the Wikimedia board, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, on steps to impose editorial review on articles about living people. I remember reading once about the challenges that the home telephone presented to people when first introduced. What time of day is acceptable for someone to disturb someone at home? How should the phone be answered? The computer has presented a similar challenge to us but in an even deeper and broader sense due to its amazing power to gather and share information. And the speed with which this technology changes is an added element in the mix. If we stand still we fall behind. http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Shapingourlives/Livingwiththetelephone/ Firstencounters/index.htmEarly phone etiquette (1922) : but we haven't been introduced ... By the early 1900s, for the upper classes a telephone call was beginning to take the place of the calling card. Instead of leaving a card and waiting to be invited, people would telephone and ask if they might pay a visit. Emily Post in her 1922 book 'Etiquette' noted: 'Custom... has taken away all opprobrium from the message by telephone and, with the exception of a very small minority of letter-loving hostesses, all informal invitations are sent and answered by telephone.' Even so, there was endless uncertainty about the etiquette involved in using the telephone - about the 'proper' way to give one's number, and to whom? Who should make the first call - man or woman? Could one call someone to whom one had not been formally introduced? Questions like these would preoccupy the etiquette writers and authorities for decades.

Reflections on 9/11 Photos

Diana, my friend and neighbor across the street, forwarded to all on her email contact list some just released photos of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Fifty-seven slides. One in particular early on made me catch my breath. It was a small single falling person silhouetted against the large. plain, white background of the building.

The slides seem to go on and on. Views from overhead, from across the water with a small Statue of Liberty in the foreground, from ground level, from the north, the south, views of the initial impact and the flames, pictures and pictures and pictures of the clouds of pulverized debris, billowing like smoke, spreading out, spreading out, spreading out.

At first I was thinking that enough was enough. There are so many pictures, and they all told the same story. But then I began to feel the cumulative affect of the pictures.

What an audacious plan, to aim an airplane like a bullet, like an arrow, at the these incredibly tall buildings jutting up into the sky above New York, the economic center of a capitalist society whose god is money, with the buildings giving the finger to these fundamentalist Muslims. These men who planned and trained and coordinated with others, the other airplanes bent on their own destructive missions, to bring America to her knees while they go to the glory of their heaven.

But this isn’t the warfare of rules, the Geneva Convention and warrior fighting warrior. The people inside these buildings were office workers in their suits and ties and skirts and dresses. They’d kissed their husbands and wives and kids goodbye that morning and got on the commuter train and thought about work or what they were going to do that night or getting braces for Sarah or whether they should ask Mother to come live with them.

I have always been amazed that there are rules of war. Isn’t the saying “all’s fair in love and war”? These men believed that to be true. And the consequences of their action are being felt still in the Middle East and here at home as our warriors leave their homes and families to return, some damaged. And some not to return. As many, and more, than the number who died on 9/11.

August 1, 2009

The Day the Earth Stood Still

sometimes i think that the day the earth stood still is happening right now not that it’s really standing still as in the movie that was to demonstrate the power that the benign alien visitor had over the events of the human race he could, or his robot could, cause the destruction of humans but in our case now we are causing our destruction

not in one day which is why we aren’t as alarmed as we should be today on the news npr of course was the story of a recent phenomenon rain on snow 20,000 musk oxen were found dead in 2004 it took awhile to figure out that rain falling on snow froze and prevented the oxen from digging through the snow to the food below another global warming event i hear it all of the time the polar bears’ ice is shrinking drought floods and developing industrialized nations china india don’t want to cut back on their global warming gasses because they want what we have and we got what we have by burning burning burning fossil fuels and we didn’t sign the kyoto agreement in 1997 but now we’re on board with climate change al gore’s an inconvenient truth probably helped but scientists say that the 20 or 30 years we’re giving ourselves to reverse our dependence on fossil fuels is still going to produce some irrevocable changes all of the animals all of the plants that will be gone for good it’s so sad i cry

valerie july 28, 2009

this was what i've heard the lang. arts teachers call free write...wanted to write something to test the newly installed iWork

and the only day the earth stood still i've seen is the first, with michael rennie and patricia neal charles and i loved it

out there

Oh my goodness, I'm a babe in the woods. After viewing the radio interview with Billy Bob Thornton (his band members must be nothing but embarrassed, oh, and mad because they had to cancel their tour), I thought of the notorious Alec Baldwin phone call to his daughter. I found that and listened. Then I wanted to look around for other views, more background. Found a blog that at first I thought was a straightforward. Then realized it was satirical. I mean, the blogger is calling himself Jon Swift. Wasn't it Jonathan Swift who wrote the piece about eating your children during the famine in Ireland? (Not sure if I have the facts all correct there. It's been decades since I was in that English Lit. class in college. And I teach 7th grade math and science. Not really set up to keep my memory fresh on Beowulf, The Cantebury Tales, et al). And this Jon is writing things like what good parenting this 11 or 12 year old girl is experiencing when not only does she get call from her father, angry at the rude treatment he is receiving from her, but her mother releases this recording to the Internet. Parents will now realize that they can use this sort of thing as a threat to their kids he goes on to say. When I first started reading I was appalled, since I had just this evening heard a woman call Obama a Nazi because his health plan will kill old people, so I was in the frame of mind to believe that he believed what he was writing. When I figured out he was writing tongue in check I enjoyed it. And then I found on this blog there were other blogs listed that this blogger follows - what a word, blog, is it like smog, smoke and fog, blab and log? - and I find A Well Informed Citizenry, with a beautiful repro of an old picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Well, I made a quick judgement that that's what they were doing. Something important was going on since all had their white wigs on. But when I saw this beautifully presented page I realized that I'm jumping into an ocean of experienced, interesting, informed, erudite folk. But that's never stopped me. You know, pretend you know what you're doing and you can get by till you really do know what you're doing.

I sometimes have thought that if there were a God, and she could see everything that everyone is doing, then she could show what everyone is doing to everyone else then everyone would behave better because it would no longer be "let your conscience be your guide". And here we are, everyone is watching. Rodney King being beaten just came to mind. But we're not watching everywhere. People still cut you off on the freeway. And of course, much more serious things occur. But along the same lines I just thought of the movie I watched earlier this evening, Ben X. A Flemish film about a teenage boy with Alperger's Syndrome who had been harassed intolerably by his classmates. Another classmate had filmed an especially terrible event and this was later used cleverly to bring justice. Oh, that's a spoiler. If anyone is reading this...

One of my facebook friends from school sent me a msg. saying she enjoyed reading my facebook postings. So maybe someone will like my blogging. For me, for now, it's a log.

Facebook to Blogging

My first computer has allowed me to follow various trails that I couldn't follow when my school computer was my only connection to all that's available in this other place. I've been able now to find the playlist for the world music that Charlie Gillett plays on Saturday nights on NPR. And look up the book of the author being interviewed that sounds so interesting. (Goat Song, by the way.)

When I told my friend and neighbor Jenny that I now had a computer she sent me an email inviting me to get on facebook and become a friend. Which I did. Several people from work, when they heard I was on facebook, invited me to be a friend. So I started to learn the protocol. It's only been maybe a week, maybe two, and I've decided that blogging might be more suited to my temperment than facebooking. I wrote entirely too much on facebook. It looks like its meant for brief updates.

While going from one thing to another I found a woman's blog. I liked it. And later I thought, maybe I should do a blog. So here it is. Maybe once blogging fills one niche I'll find facebook satisfactory for another niche. We'll see.

But on the subject of what's available online, I found, thanks to one of my students who had completed his Excel Spreadsheet/Pie Chart project, the street level view of my house. How do they do that, I wanted to know. A friend said, "They have cameras everywhere." I objected. There aren't cameras on my street lights. And if there were they wouldn't provide the 360 degree view available. So I searched. A 360 degree camera mounted on a vehicle was the reasonable answer. Also found some reasonable viewpoints on whether we should feel that our privacy is being invaded. In fact, I think that's how I came across Laura Weinstein's blog, the blog mentioned earlier.

The satellite views of Alaska are interesting.

And now, I'm going to look up the YouTube piece on Billy Bob Thornton being, uh, difficult during an interview. Just heard the interviewer being interviewed himself on NPR. Signing off, the now connected to the www, Valerie