July-August Nature: Dragonflies!

Though I'd seen a dragonfly or two here and there through late June and early July, or perhaps may have only been seeing some damselflies from a distance, I began to notice them out in full task force in late July, early August. Go, dragonflies! Eat those mosquitoes and gnats!


Scarlet Darter Dragonfly

I found a lovely website full of gorgeous photos of Arkansas dragonflies, which I so wanted to use on my blog, but alas, they are copyrighted, so I'll just have to send you there directly and hope I get a decent camera soon so I can take my own nature photos! Random Natural Acts: Photography and Writings by Herschel Raney.

In digging around for pictures and information, I learned that one way to distinguish a damselfly from a dragonfly is that a damselfly rests with its wings folded closed, but a dragonfly rests with wings open.

Here's an Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly and an Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly:



Here's a Digital Dragonfly Museum put on the web by Texas A&M. And of course, the wikipedia article is pretty good. I learned that some dragonflies live in their larval stage for up to 5 years! Smaller species are larval for 2 months to three years. They then live up to 4 months (larger species) once they become flying adults. Another tidit: dragonflies always attack from below, so prey can't dive away. The culture section of the wiki article is also pretty cool... here's a tidbit I enjoyed from that, a Vietmanese weather forcasting: "Dragonflies fly at low level, it is rainy; dragonflies fly at high level, it is sunny; dragonflies fly at medium level, it is shadowy." From another site, I learned that their 80% of their brains are devoted to analyzing visual input.

Dragonflies are ancient! Oldest fossils date to 325 million years. Check out this 155 million year old fossil from Bavaria:



Related bugs this month (unfortunately we discover several when skimming the pool):

Mayflies:

Summer updates

So, it's been a while since I posted... what's been going down since then? Some highlights:

DS's grandpa bought him a 16ft x 4ft deep above ground pool. It has been heaven to swim in, especially under the moonlight. Being a Scorpio water sign, with a moon in Cancer, and Aquarian ascendant... well, it's just wrong how deprived of water I've been... swimming, I mean, total immersion. I don't get to do baths, anymore, just showers, and I'm shy of public pools, so this is one of the best gifts we've ever received.

I suppose my eco-friendly sensibilities feel a little guilty for having a private pool like that, but hopefully, we can minimize water waste by keeping it up through the year, only half draining, and letting the spring rains refill it each season. And I'm hoping to get a saltwater generator so we can forego the harsher chemicals. I know the impact it's having on my health, the improvements in my sleep cycle, and happiness factor will help us reduce consumption in other areas of our lives, so hopefully, it's reasonably well justified. And we went with a smaller size to save a few thousand gallons of water usage.

Was that guilt appeasement or what? I just know I adore this pool and feel so lucky and grateful.

Other news to be grateful for: we received scholarship for Enki, which was a huge, huge relief. Now, we're just waiting the slooooow process of getting our first grade package mailed to us. I thought it would be going out last week and delivering this week, but unfortunately, it took 6 or 7 business days for it to ship out... so, package label made today, expected next week delivery. I'm disappointed in that since it leaves me only 3 weeks to study before my own full time schedule of classes begins on August 21st. 4 weeks was bad enough... but to lose an extra week... *sigh*

I can't complain too much, though... scholarship and all. But I'm dreading this return to school and hoping it won't be too stressful or time consuming to pull off our holistic homeschooling as well as I'd like. I'm worried about all the extra computer time it will entail. I'll just have to get a plan and designate computer time and stick to it. Cross fingers this program will not be too complicated.

Husbo's work is finally coming around and he's been able to rearrange his job duties so that hopefully he'll also be able to handle his own start back to grad school (MSW) alongside being a social worker with DHS. Not easy. But easier than it was, thankfully. It was a nightmare already, sans grad school. One of the most overworked, underpaid, yet important jobs there is, imo.

Another highlight: Ani Difranco is coming to Fayetteville, woohoo! And we're going. I think we'll have pretty good seats, unless I had a dyslexic moment while ordering from the seating charts. Can't wait... that's in September. She's a goddess among women, for sure.

And now... I'm finally dragging myself to the weekly Buddhist Fellowship at our UU. I realize that I need this weekly reminder and experience to help me commit to daily meditation practice, which is so vital to teacher health and managing the wackiness that homeschooling a young child can bring. It's all about keeping one's cool, staying present in the moment, and not getting too cramped into reaction during challenging times, but staying open and responsive. Breeeeeathing. Ommmmmm.

Wish me luck!

Where's the Juice! (Belly Dancing and my 5yr old)

So, a friend recently came to town to perform in a belly dancing show, so we went and took DS and her boys, too. DS, apparently, is quite the fan. In short time, he was zaghareeting, yipping, and hissing like a champ, often leading the crowd in this endeavor and to the degree I was starting to worry it might be too much! But I didn't want to discourage him because I could see he was so genuinely into the experience and thought it was a beautiful thing. My friend seemed to think so, too, so I took her lead on it. As did he. Whenever she'd make a new sound, he'd mimic her, as did another little girl standing near by. It was awesome and I could hug her neck for her part in offering such a cool cultural experience for my little fella. He's usually kind of reserved when it comes to letting loose in audience participation... shy about dancing, especially, but he was so absorbed in this. At one moment late in the show... he got especially excited and mid-zaghareet, he yells out, "Where's the juice?!" before kicking right back into the vocals.

Don't ask me what that was about, but it was awesome. Where's the juice, indeed.

A few days later, at home, he brought up that the belly dancing was a lot like the "flamingo" dancing he'd seen before. He was referring to a Flamenco show at our local arts center, and thinking of a few similiarities, such as the castanets (the belly dancers had finger cymbals), and some of the foot work. Bless his heart. I love when he makes the connections on his own. That's such a big part of our curriculum and homeschooling style... to have these experiences (immersion) and let him discover the connections and meanings, a priority over we, the adults, doing any kind of interpretation or talky-talky stuff with him.

It rocks when it works... and it works all the time.