You Never Know When You Might Find A Friend!

  Making sure the garden stays moist is a chore that appeals to me. Dragging the water hose around the garden and giving each plant a nice drink seems to be refreshing to me also.  I can only imagine how the plants feel!  While I was out tending the flora, the fauna needed a bit of assistance as well. The birdbath was bone dry.  Since it is further down the hill than where the hose will reach, a jug of water was toted.  As I headed out the gate, a bright idea struck me.  Why not replace the bottles on the bottle tree?  Son had pulled the bottles during one particularly windy storm.  He figured that there was no need in having a bottle slung into a window.  With a water jug in one hand and three of the many long-necked bottles in the other, I headed down the hillside.  It was then that I felt the familiar pitter-patter of little feet on my arm. Oh, geez!  A critter must have been inside of one of the bottles and was now making an escape right up my arm!  Looking down, I breathed as sigh of relief.  My critter was nothing more than a baby praying mantis!  

  Once I reached the bottle tree stand, I stopped long enough to set the bottles on the ground and let my new little friend disembark onto the post.  I figured it would be long gone by the time I returned from filling the birdbath.  I was in for a happy surprise when I returned.  The mantis was still on the post.  It had climbed up to the tiptop and then onto an osprey feather that I had found and jabbed into the post.  The tiny critter sat proudly on its new home.

  The mantis was busy while I replaced the blue bottles on the tree.  It caught a spider and was munching down on it.  Ok....this was a good chance to take a picture to prove just how good it is to have a mantis friend!  Not that I have anything against spiders (even though I can fully attest at how their bites hurt!), but just having the mantis eating bugs made a point.  They are excellent bug catchers and are not one bit persnickety about the type they eat.  Spiders, stinkbugs, gnats, mosquitoes, cabbage moths are all on the menu for a mantis!  Finding this critter made my day much happier.  Knowing it resides in the garden makes life a bit easier.  So....water hoses, bottle trees, birdbaths and a praying mantis filled my day!