eve_prime | Entries tagged with fauna of chapel hill

Yesterday

fractal9091 photographed a couple of beauties at his friend's house. The mantis climbed resolutely up his legs and arms, trying to get as high as possible:

This lizard lives on the fence there:

( Two more pictures of them )

D. had fun with critters today too, playing with some "pollifrogs," as he called them, at a nursery on Sauvie Island, near Portland. R. had taken him along for some annual socialization with gardening friends.

Thanks to

fractal9091, I now have a new entry in the Fauna of Chapel Hill series, the first in months. This big, fat snake was about five feet long! It travelled from their front lawn down into the street, which it slithered across then headed into the neighbors' yard.

With that white underbelly, we're guessing it's a black rat snake or a black racer. Does anyone know for sure?

Today they finished building the new house, the builder told me. The owner of the house was having it built for his wife's sister to live in... I wonder if it's a Christmas present? Does she even know about the house? What a mind-boggling surprise that would be!

So my boss changed his mind and decided to move down the hall after all, which means I stay put. Now I need to hurry and use the energy I got from welcoming the office change, to reorganize the space I'm in, before I go back to being oblivious of the mess.

After work I went and stocked up on food for Christmas Eve. I got lots of yummies, pretty much everything except the smoked salmon. I also picked up some nice precooked dinners from the deli (which is very fancy, with a fresh sushi bar and a cheese steward): Asian grilled salmon with asparagus and jasmine rice, a serving larger than even I can eat for just $5.99. Richard opened up bottle #1688 out of 2412 of the 2002 Sarah's Vineyard Syrah (thanks to DH, their winemaker), and I also tried a nibble of a new (to me) kind of cheese I'd picked up, called Roncal, from Navarre. I just read on-line that the flavor is "buttery with an aroma of straw, dried fruit, and mushrooms." I'm not sure that's quite it.

Oh! At the store I also finally got to see one of the infamous Men of Long Tom Grange calendars. This is a fundraiser for a grange northwest of Eugene, with ordinary men of the community posing nude. This year they had a mayor, a deputy police chief, a winemaker, and an 80-year-old grass seed farmer, among others. I was surprised at how much bare skin they actually show -- nearly everything!

J. took this great portrait of a hawk today in Chapel Hill.
If anyone can tell us what kind it is (red-shouldered maybe?), please let us know.

Another fine entry in the Fauna of Chapel Hill series, taken by J. on Monday:

When I turned in the book today, at the UO library, all the best parking spaces were taken up by big, unmarked white trailers and fancy RVs. After puzzling over it for a bit, I came up with a theory -- maybe they were bringing all the art back to the UO Art Museum (for its post-renovation reopening) in climate-controlled vehicles. But when I walked past and looked in, all I could really see was sound equipment. Then I rounded a corner and saw lots more workers, and two guys wearing headphones talking about "scenes 65 and 66," and then started seeing groups of gathered people and very large lighting equipment and realized that they were filming something.

In fact, it was a Hollywood film crew, shooting the movie ZeroPhilia, which sounds more than a little strange: "The independent feature film is a unique coming-of-age comedy. Matt Radecki, the producer says, 'The z chromosome makes you sexually morphise when you are attracted to the opposite sex. So, it's a very funny movie, and our lead character discovers he has it. He falls in love with a girl and finds out he becomes one and vice versa.'"

This praying mantis collided with J. this evening:

I'm hoping to revive our lawn before R's best friend DH comes to visit, but that's only 9 days away, so it's unlikely. The outer lawn, by the street, is rather crispy and brown (except for the dandelion plants, which are its only green). The very back lawn is crispy too, but the part outside the front door is nice and green.

So I was outside turning off the sprinkler, and it was so pleasant out there -- the sun had set, but the sky was still blue, with wisps of clouds throughout, and a breeze was rustling the leaves of the cottonwoods, but it was still warm. It reminded me of how pleasurable it was, 7 or 8 years ago, to be outside reading at dusk in the summer. That year, I read the letters of Pliny the Younger, a very interesting Roman with an estate near modern Lake Como. In another 7 or 8 years, I can enjoy that lifestyle again, when D's a bit more self-sufficient. These days, the hour or so after my dinner is too often spent trying to coax him to eat his own. "Mommy, I don't liiiiike this."

Tonight I hope to see many pictures of the wedding, the rehearsal, the reception, and the subsequent trip to Acadia National Park, but first, here's a praying mantis for the Fauna of Chapel Hill collection (thank you, J.!):

(Correction, 20 August: We just learned that this is a Carolina mantis.)

Here's the latest in the Fauna of Chapel Hill series. This iridescent green spider rode around on J's car on Monday. (Chapel Hill is chock full o' bugs.)

First, a little wild bunny in J's yard in Chapel Hill, NC (isn't it darling?):

And then a few links to go with my earlier post -- some very high quality pictures by a local photographer from the area around Tywyn, Wales, where "The Grey King" is set. The first of these shows Bird Rock, and the second shows the path up to the mountain, Cader Idris.

(This post's title originally contained an awkward pun about Welsh rabbit, but I gave up on it. If such a thing would have amused you, please give me partial credit. FYI, "Welsh rabbit" is grated cheese mixed with beer, spread on toast or crackers, and then heated under a grill -- in essence, Celtic nachos,

keyboard_monkey.)