A Day In The Life Of A Mad Scientist

So, I’ve been noticing these grubs crawling on the walking trail the last several weeks. There’s not a whole lot but enough that it’s peaked my interest, also it’s something I’ve never seen before.

These dudes live in the dirt, so not sure why they’re coming up and out and crawling on the hot pavement, it’s odd to me -

I’m also seeing oodles of these, what look like sifted dirt mounds in the grass along side the walking trail. Turns out these are fire ant 🐜 mounds, yikes 😬 and ouch 🤕 if you get into them -

Using a stick, I poked some holes in and around a couple of these mounds and boy-o-boy they came alive!

I also performed a teeny, what some might view as a, sadistic experiment today 😬

Click the YouTube link below to see what happens when you disturb a fire ant nest and then introduce a grub into the  melee -

Fire Ant and Grub Experiment 

It’s a tad violent!

And a bit of a waste of a tasty morsel, yum 😋! Think I’ll see if I can find a couple, then head on over to the Nolichucky for bit of fishing, upon my return from Chicago. I’m guessing they would make terrific bait!

What A Lovely Start

What a beautiful morning for a walk!

Slowing It Down

Friday afternoons are meant for porch sitting and just “hanging” around -

Breaking in new coozies -

And some delicious pizza 🍕 -

#Blessed

A Beauty

Final got some much needed rain yesterday afternoon, although not enough but every little bit helps.

What followed the rain was this awesome rainbow -

Mild Or Harsh

Could this be a sign of things to come?!

The oak trees are loaded with acorns this years, oodles of them, see the pic I took the other day -

According to popular weather folklore, a heavy crop of falling brown acorns in the autumn 🍂 predict a harsh, cold and snowy winter…

Or

Is this simply a “mast year” - a natural cycle where large groups of oak trees drop an unusually massive and coordinated crop of acorns, which happens every 2 to 10 years.

Ask me in the spring of 2027 and I’ll let you know what it means 😉

Udderly Confused

Is this what the question means when asked, “if the carpet matches the drapes”?!

Asking for a friend.

Deer Dynamic Duos

“Sorry folks parks closed, the moose out front should have told you”

This mother and her youngster combination tried to bully me and keep me from passing.  They had the walking trail blocked and it looked like they were prepared for a game of chicken! However, they underestimated who they were trying to intimidate and bounced off into the overgrowth as I neared. Pfft, talk about chickens…

There was another mother and youngster pair not far from the two above who we’re frolicking in the soybean field as they worked up the courage to cross the walking path and off in the direction of Moon creek. Perhaps, they were parched and needing some fresh crisp water.

Click the link below to be taken to a short YouTube video of the duo high stepping through the crops-

A Frolicking They Go

I think I’m getting better at this video thing 😉

Perfect Camouflage

Yesterday, as I was trying to take some pics of this striking looking double-banded scoliid wasp -

I had to move around the yellow ironweed plant in an attempt to get a good pic. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone and the only one eyeing this wasp!

Look closely, what else do you see in the picture below -

Here’s another angle that may help. See it -

Yuppers, that’s a Carolina mantis completely upside down (in pic above) just patiently waiting for the right opportunity to strike, whether this wasp or some other unsuspecting insect -

I prefer the Carolina mantis over the Chinese mantis, just saying.

Blow This!

To the conductor of the 3:30AM train that just roared by, I hope you get the foreskin of your willy stuck in the zipper of your trousers!!

“How’d you get the beans above the frank?!” - from the 1998 comedy There’s Something About Mary

Was it really necessary, at that time of night, to lay on the whistle like you did, twice?!

Not only did you blow that darn thing SO flipp’n long to wake up the dead but you also woke up every sleeping dog in the area who are now barking incessantly, GRR

The Great Footwear Debate

How so you get dressed and in what order do you put your socks and shoes on? Are you a sock-sock, shoe-shoe or a sock-shoe, sock-shoe person?

I have a bit of OCD myself, so I’m with Archie on this one! Socks first, then shoes. 

Click this link to be taken to Instagram to see what I’m referring to - Sock-sock, shoe-shoe

Do you agree with Archie Bunker or Michael Stivic, aka Meathead?!

Suppose this sock-sock, shoe-shoe conundrum is akin to the debate on what the proper way is to hang a roll of toilet paper…

A Secretive Bird For Sure

I was finally able to take a picture of this Green Heron -

I see this dude quite often, usually in the mornings, down around the pond but it very skittish and takes off  when I stop to try and try to take a photo. However, I was successful this morning!

There are some pretty cool ducks in the pond too; well actually they’re typically roosting on branches overhanging the pond and talk about skittish, geesh (not geese)! They take flight immediately as I approach and start “quacking” as they go, which isn’t very far all things considered. Usually to the far side of the pond and into the overgrowth.

They’re smaller brownish colored and look to be very agile. I’ve not been able to get a good look at them, so I’m unable to identify but it’s just a matter of time. I’ll get a pic eventually.

Here’s a better picture I took this AM -

Hmm, Le Me Think About This…

What’s That Rustling

The field corn 🌽 that abuts the trail I’ve been walking the last several months is getting closer to harvest time.

As you can see it’s turning yellow and golden, and drying up quite nicely.

It’s SO peaceful walking along this area in general but especially when the wind is blowing and you can hear the rustling of the dried up stalks!

I’m hopeful to be able to catch the harvesting in action but unfortunately, that is also an indication that fall is not too far off.

Free Lil Willy

I was not delivering a vital life-saving organ in that thar cooler, nope -

Oh wait, what’s that a flipp’n and a flopp’n at the bottom of said cooler you might ask -

Well, that my friends is Lil Willy!

A perdy koi fish who was forced out of, and deported from, the only koi pond its ever known, alas.

Fear not, for Lil Willy hath been re-homed, with a subtle “splash” I might add, to a spacious family owned pond in Limestone -

Finger’s crossed that we get some much needed rain before the pond starts looking like the inside of that cooler! 

Although, there are some threats in and around the pond, e.g. herons, egrets and water snakes to name a few, I’m hopeful that Lil Willy will do just fine and become the ponds BIG fish!

Find The Critter

Can you find the critter in the first picture below -

Or maybe this is a little easier -

There she is, a beautiful Chinese mantis -

I can’t believe you were unable to spot her in the first pic! I had NO issue seeing her in that field of soybeans this morning. Easy pesy really…

Gobble Gobble

Here’s something I used to see all the time back in Massachusetts, wild turkeys. I would see them quite often when out running errands.

There was a large group that I would see regularly passing through my yard. The Tom’s always showing off by strutting and puffing themselves up, often times in the middle of the street, stopping traffic.

However, here in East Tennessee, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen these critters since my arrival back in December, and the times I have seen them they were so cautious and allusive they’ve been hard to get pictures of. 

Similar to the Canadian geese I blogged about prior, both these critters seem more “wild” in these parts. Perhaps, here they’ve not yet had to give in to the development, encroachment and building that’s taking place back home. However, that development is making its way south, so we’ll see how long these birds stay “wild”

Not the best picture below but it helps to make my point above -

Field Of Rolled Hay

TGIF Y’all!

Luv the smell of a fresh cut hay field -

I’ll never get tired of views like this!

The Grasshopper Teacher

Yesterday, I followed a brown flying grasshopper, along the section of the walking trail pictured below, for I’d guess about a quarter mile.

That darn thing would fly ahead some 15’-20’ then land on the paved trail each and every time! I lost track of the count after 24 take offs and landings, I kid you not!

With the soybean field to one side of the trail and overgrowth on the other, that darn thing just kept moving forward refusing to land anywhere else but the trail. It didn’t have the smarts or desire to fly in the other direction, behind where we just came from, nope. Instead it kept moving forward and I’m guessing expended all its energy doing so -

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said -

“If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run, then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward”

Simple And Tasty

I found another hidden away East Tennessee eatery, Rheatown Country Store, which is just down the road from me off 11e. 

It’s nothing fancy by any stretch but that’s what so appealing, to me anyway. It’s not really a store, perhaps it was at one time. I mean they do have some snackie type items, e.g. drinks, some chips and some candies but that’s about it. It’s more of a restaurant. 

I stopped in there this morning, before my walk, to give it a try and I was not disappointed, and left full, fat and happy!

Biscuits with gravy, a couple over easy eggs and bacon!

The breakfast of heart failure -

And I enjoyed every bite 👅 !

Strike A Pose

Smile you’re on candid cam…

Oops 😬, seems I’m a tad slow on the ole iPhone camera draw, alas.

Here are a few examples where had I been a little faster, perhaps I’d have a picture or two to share. Sadly, being I’m all thumbs 👍 sometimes, the below descriptions is all I have for you. You’ll need to use your imagination -

I stepped off the walking trail yesterday morning to shake the dew of my trouser lily 😉, next to Moon Creek. Well, I startled an otter 🦦, yes an otter 🦦! He didn’t stick around for a photo shoot, noppers, rather he took off like a dart and was gone with water 💦 splashing and swooshing. He startled me so that it was all I could do to not wet myself, forget reaching for my camera. Alas, a missed opportunity.

Or when a BIG raccoon 🦝 crossed the walking trail just feet away from me, as it ran into the soybean field! I was too slow again.

How bout the time I scared a mother deer 🦌 and her youngster? It was another one of those moments when, truth be told, we scared each other. I was in deep thought having already walked six miles, when the pair darted from along side the corn 🌽 field. With the mother taking the lead, they both crossed the walking trail and the street (Eden street) running parallel to it. However, the far side of the street has a wire fence running along it and there are trees on both sides of said fence and all sorts of overgrowth covering it all, so there was no easy access spot to get over. Both deer ran up and down the fence line several times searching for an opening. The mother found it first and jumped the fence with confidence and ease. The youngest on the other hand was less sure of itself but finally made the jump and off they disappeared into the overgrowth. In hindsight, I prolly had time to pull out my phone and snap a pic but I was captivated with watching them flee and hearing their hoofs clippity-clopping on the street.

Or the time I spied a lizard 🦎 on the Tusculum university Bill and Jean Pilloni pedestrian bridge; the one that spans over Rt107. I did a double take on this dude because I was VERY surprised to see such a critter here in East Tennessee.  Florida yes, definitely, but not here.

Unless I can improve my reaction times, might need to consider a body camera or perhaps a Go Pro. These missed opportunities to get these cool sighting captured is a bummer.

I’m Not Squirreling Around

It’s a hot and humid one out there this morning folks, phew! Even this grey squirrel seems to have had enough, and it was only 11AM -

This one was pilfering the cats breakfast -

And he wasn’t too pleased about it either -

This one wasn’t hard to spot, LOUDLY gnawing on a hard walnut while trying to be inconspicuous, and looking down at me with that “what you look’n at brotato chip”, fail -

Another adventurous morning walk!

Goldenrod And Lore

The Goldenrod is starting to bloom here in East Tennessee -

Old time weather lore says that when Goldenrod is blooming, the first frost is about 6-weeks away!

The days are getting shorter and the evenings a bit cooler. It’s a coming folk, fall is fast approaching!

It’s A Sign

Okay folks can you spot what, I believe, is wrong in the first picture below -

Look at the sign!

Look at the direction it’s been mounted to face!

It’s facing inwards toward the soybean field!

What traffic is there out in the field that would need such a reminder? I’m fairly certain that geese cannot read, nor can they drive, so what gives?

I suppose it could be intended for the farmer when he’s out plowing or planting or harvesting the field but I think that’s doubtful and a bit of a stretch. This stretch of the walking trail is acres of field corn and soybean and on both sides of the road and trail. 

Rather, I think the post itself was either put in facing the wrong direction or it was used for something else at one point, maybe farm related; an old fence?!

Assuming I’m correct, this would be just another example of shoddy workmanship and poor work ethics. I mean who would mount a sign like that and not question it? Maybe it’s all about checking a box - install warning sign on walking trail, “check”/done. Next task…

Carolina NOT Chinese

I spied this beauty making her way across the walking trail this morning -

I believe this is a female Carolina mantis, a native species to East Tennessee and which is a first for me!

I’m used to seeing the non-native, invasive Chinese mantis, which are also well established in East Tennessee.

 She blended in quite well with the dried mud. The walking trail is typically very busy on Saturday mornings, and today was no exception, so I picked her up and moved her out of harms way so no one would stepped on her.

The walking trail is full of all sorts of wildlife; I luv it!