In doing major reconstruction on the Little Bayou House, I have learned a multitude of useful things. Along the way, I have also learned a multitude of useless things. One balances out the other so all is well. One of the more useful things is to measure twice and cut once. Pop used to tell me this all of the time but until I started playing with tools, I never realized just how valuable this information is. It sure saves a lot of boards! Miscuts can ruin about as many good planks as the termites do. One of the useless bits of information is that wasps can get through tiny holes. Duh! Everyone should already know this. It never occurred to me how many critters are housed in the same home in which I live. Not to creep anybody out here but your home probably has critters, too. I know, I know....you have a deal with an exterminator but it was one of those fine fellows that told me that inside most walls, critters abound and there is not a lot you can do about it...short of poking holes in between each stud and spraying each month. Critters just have a way of creepy-crawling in and then making themselves at home....just inches from you!
When Son pulled off some of the siding in an attempt to repair damage from some of those critters (termites), he found evidence of other critters. Some tiny...others not so tiny. Here on the Bayou, there is just about every type critter and they all love to be cozy in their nests. Son pointed out gecko egg shells (thankfully, they already hatched. I would have hated to hurt those), spider webs (yay for spiders! They eat termites!) and wasp nests. The most prevalent of all the wasp nests were those of the mud daubers. The long mud nests were everywhere!
The bit of useless information that I gleaned from the wasps' nests is that we have different colored mud around here! Not that having colored mud is important. I just found it interesting. When Son handed me a mud dauber's nest, the bottom clearly showed the layers of different mud. Some was garden mud, some bayou mud and then there was clay. I am not sure where the wasp found red clay but the bottom of the nest showed several layers of gold-colored clay. Nicely done, Mama Mud Dauber, nicely done.
On the other side of the nest, the cells could clearly be seen. Whether the holes in this side were created by the new wasps escaping the confines of their larval home or whether these holes were made by a marauding thief dining on the larvae is not clear. There are numerous other critters that raid the nests to steal the larvae and the preserved spiders that Mama Mud Dauber so carefully stowed for her babies.
What I shall do with the tidbit of information about the clay is wholly uncertain but I have it just in case it is ever needed. Somewhere on this plot of ground there is a spot of red clay. What I do with the useful bit about measuring will surely save us a lot at the lumberyard! Measure twice, cut once and use red clay to make a nest. Sounds logical.
Weird thoughts dominate the brain at times. A most commonplace thing can strike up a thought that is about as crazy as one can be. I ponder how in the world I even know some of the things but thousands of useless facts are stored in among the cobwebs in the deep, dark depths of my mind. That one sight or sound can bring things to the surface and then I ponder.
Today's trigger sight was a dragonfly. I was coming up from checking the crab traps when I spied a beauty of a Blue Dasher Dragonfly. How I even knew what type the thing was amazed me. The name just popped into the head along with a few other obscure facts about the critter. Since I was thinking about the bug, I decided to plop myself down and visit with it a while.
An adult dragonfly eats hundreds of soft-bodied insects each day which makes me happy. Right now, the Bayou is inundated with bugs of all sorts. The mosquitoes are here in masses, termites by the tons and deer flies in droves. I need just as many dragonflies to protect me from the others! The nymph of the dragonfly lives in still waters such as the Frog Pond and in the brackish water of the Bayou. The nymph's appetite rivals that of the adult. Mostly, the nymph feeds upon mosquito larva.
Most everyone knows the above facts about the critters but one almost grotesque fact popped into the head while thinking about the beautiful dragonfly. While it is not so in the adults, the nymphs have a very unusual (almost disturbing) way of breathing. Water is taken in and expelled through their anus. Air is extracted from this water flow which also propels the critter through the water. Soooo......dragonfly nymphs breathe through their butts! Weird.....I am not sure how I even know that and, to be certain, I did a bit of checking. Yep, that tidbit is a fact. SO.....now you know! (And now that fact shall pop into your head every time you see a dragonfly!)
