Artichoke Bug Update

More arthropodic assistance to give us a bumper crop of artichokes this year.

First, a wasp going to town on aphids. 

And second, a beautiful jumping spider sitting in wait on the stalk.  She is huge!  About an inch or so.

 

Astute observers will notice I flipped the picture.  The spider is easier to recognize this way but I'll note she usually sits facing the ground.

Thank you, bugs!

yes, I know, spiders aren't bugs.  I know wasps aren't even bugs in the hemiptera sense.  I don't care.

You Know It's Time

I procrastinate my fair share, sure.  And I leave my truck messy on occasion.  I was walking to my truck from work today and happened to glance at a truck parked near mine.

Here is how you know for sure that it has been way too long since you cleaned out the bed of your pickup:

At first I thought that someone had thrown a plant in there.  But no, that's a big-ass weed growing in the busted up bags of soil in the bed of that truck.  Those bags have been like that so long that a dandelion seed blew in there and sprouted!  And is now huge!

Time to clean, man.

Hope he doesn't get busted for having a bag of weed in his truck.

It's Like Nothing's Changed

I saw that recently some whack-job burned a copy of the Quran.  Then some other whack-job (who also happens to be the president of Afghanistan) got his people all pissed off about it.  Unable to travel to Florida and kill the book-burner, the angry mob turned on some local UN officials, and killed them instead.  24 people, to be precise.  Who had nothing to do with any of it.  Because, damn it, someone's gettin' killed! 

Of course, this makes me think of one thing, and one thing only!