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This is the “life is humorous, life is irritating, life is tragic, life is triumphant” edition.
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HA HA
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When last in Suva, I tucked into a nearby cafe for a quick meal. I saw the breakfast menu (photo above). Would you like a Bun of Contempt with your tea?.
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(stock photo).
IRRITATING
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The real reason I was getting desperate to ship my quilt to a safe location is that a blinking mud dauber started a nest on my PILLOW! A few days later on Austin’s pillow. Here is a one-day creation on our keyboard.
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On our bug light. How’s that for irony?
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And on a louver in my mother-in-law’s room.
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Yes, everywhere I turn right now a new mud dauber nest in progress. But if in some dimension the bugs have their version of a blog – then they are reporting me as an equal irritation…
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Or a disaster – I destroy the nests as I find them. These are the grubs. Ugh.
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TRAGIC
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This is a small shell I found under the clothes line late last month. I found it charming.
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I put it together and took it to Austin. He said it must be from a wild bird (DUH!). And we went to the nearby mango tree and looked for the nest.
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It was up there.
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So I planned to watch for the parent birds, and later the babies, but I forgot. Last week when I was hanging clothes beside a pen that had young chicks, red ants attacked my feet. I saw them swarmed upon what I thought were 3 dead baby chickens. I told Austin and he came running. The bird corpses were not chicks but the hatchlings, and Austin guessed they were washed out of the nest by the heavy rains. Who would have ever thought of the rain as being a danger to nestlings?
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TRIUMPH !
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Our heartiest congratulations to Betty Cat – who had the infinitely GOOD SENSE (finally) to find a suitable tomcat to sire her kittens. She gave birth to four completely healthy and whole male kittens. She is fiercely protective and ran off with one of them before I could get the photo snapped. These lovely kittens are a source of joy to us now and will easily find very good homes when the time comes. YAY !!
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Flora and Fauna Weekly Report 
The mud daubers we can all send some place else along with the wasp (we also had those this summer) where non of us live…of course they would build their mud houses way up too high for me to reach with a stick. The kittens are so cute…enjoy them. As for the fire ants…personal met those in Texas..so far non here that I know of thankfully.<3
Hi Peg – I know you’d remember mud daubers from Guam, but do you have them in Arkansas also? And I called them “red ants” but they are NOT fire ants, thank God! Just biting ants – but nothing at all like the Texas variety.
Also of note is that all four kittens are male, very fortunate as they are easier to find homes for.
Happy to read your F and F. Found it by accident
Hey Ludi! Glad you found it. If you like, you can “subscribe” and then you’ll get it each week in your inbox – that’s the easy way. Or showing up by accident is ok, too. Guess what funny thing happened that is NOT going in the actual blog – the pundit and some fellows showed up 2 weeks ago with ANOTHER snake. This one is a boy. Akka is insisting on keeping it. I told him that is the LAST snake we are keeping: two is the limit. You can wear both of them on your next visit if you like. Hug hug hug