Ugly is as Ugly Does--Yellow-Necked Caterpillars Turn Beauty on Its Head

Ugly is as ugly does. Now where have I heard that expression before? Not many days after I encouraged those citrus-loving orange dogs to visit and feed freely in my garden, these strange creatures--yellow-necked caterpillars--reared their yellow-collared heads on our blueberry bushes. Oh, dear! What have I done to deserve this kind of attention? I wouldn't say these youngsters are as ugly as the orange dogs. They look rather dapper actually, as if they're dressed to impress. Those are pin-striped suits covered with a hair shirt worn outwards: "Trust me! I can do penance and look good at the same time." Okay, so maybe that interpretation is a little far out. I lay the credit for awakening my curiosity as to why we attach such abstract ideas as beauty or ugliness to things not human at blogger/writer/artist Sarah Laurence's feet. She directed me to a recent article in the New York Times that takes a stab in the dark at explaining our tendency to anthropomorphize. I do agree that I have some "aesthetic prejudices" toward some things in nature, but I don't agree with the article's overall premise that evolution brought me to this point. What would be the point of evolving so far as to see complex human characteristics in something as simple as a lowly caterpillar, if it is indeed "lowly"? There has to be more to it. Literature, perhaps? Reading too much into things? Or maybe just reading too much. If it's a sin, then I am unrepentant. Take Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, for example. Or maybe you shouldn't. It asks a lot soul-searching questions, and they come from the most unlikely of characters like the hookah-smoking Caterpillar: "'Who are you?'" And "So you think you're changed, do you?" he asks Alice. If you would ask me, I'd say, why yes. I'm not the same person I was in 1960, yesterday, or even 5 minutes ago, in a manner of speaking. And this cute caterpillar won't be as adorable when it grows up. It will look completely different, a plain Jane moth--handmaiden moth. Remember the ugly orange dog? If it survives to become what it's meant to be, it will be nothing short of beautiful, a giant swallowtail butterfly. And there goes that idea of aesthetic prejudice up in smoke. Another blogger, Britta, who is new to me but not to blogging, has recently experienced some prejudice regarding age and beauty, and she has found a creative way to vent her frustration. Hey, if you still got 'em, flaunt 'em. I like her style.

What I don't like is this caterpillar's style. It brings friends to join in the feast. Lots of them. I'll be honest with you. When I spotted these furry critters, of course I had to run and get my camera, tell SAM so he could see for himself, and then quickly find out what they are. Thank goodness for great websites! I wanted to know what kind of damage they could inflict and if it would be fatal to the blueberry bushes. These are still young shrubs and don't have a lot of foliage to spare just yet. I could not get over how many of those pin-striped caterpillars there were! SAM must have picked off at least three dozen of them. Yes, I couldn't stand to see the bushes I've tended so carefully be destroyed. We put the critters on the brush pile in the farthest corner of the backyard. Out of sight, out of mind. Let them fend for themselves, away from the heart of the garden(er). Okay, so I'm a little over-protective when it comes to something I've spent a lot of time on. These bushes have a long way to go before they're finally ready to bear a good crop of berries. Especially now. 

As you can see, they have been robbed--or have they?

Juniper Creek Trail--A Chuck-Norris-Yet-Curious-George Kind of Place

I don't advocate eating wild mushrooms, but finding some with eerily familiar shapes on Juniper Creek Trail last week sent my imagination soaring to new heights. The first one you see here looks a lot like a meringue, don't you think? It's only missing those glistening drops that form as the meringue cools after baking.

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"To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said

'I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head.

Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be,

Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'"



Daughter and SAM spotted this one before I did. It could be a veritable feast in the eyes of a survivalist slowly running out of provisions after weeks in the forest. A chicken for every pot, you say? Who needs meat when there's so much soul-food to find along the trail? As Steinbeck's Lennie would say, you could "live off the fatta the lan' " right here.

And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus:--

"Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,

And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:

Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea--

And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!"

Angling for the right to be noticed, this wild Blazing Star, Liatris tenuifolia--a member of the Aster family--grows abundantly along the sunnier meadow portions of the trail, not far from where it begins at the tiny parking area. At this time of year, be sure to douse yourself with insect repellant. Once you leave the more open meadow environment and enter the close woods, the flora begins to change, and the fauna with an appetite for human blood will start to annoy you. Actually, there is no "off" season in Florida for those pesky things. You've got to really love the heat--and bugs--to stay in this kitchen. Of course, there are silver linings to every cloud of mosquitoes. Once in a while, you'll find a delicate wildflower like the Climbing Butterfly-Pea, Centrosema virginianum, to take your mind off your troubles.

Then followed a confused noise of cheering, and Alice thought to herself "Thirty times three makes ninety. I wonder if any one's counting?" In a minute there was silence again, and the same shrill voice sang another verse:--

" 'O Looking-Glass creatures,' quoth Alice, 'draw near!

'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear:

'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea

Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!' "

You might think the water here is made out of iced tea. It's certainly cold enough, and the tannin that comes from the native oaks gives it a warm gold color, especially on a sunny autumn day. The first inhabitants and then the white settlers who came later found tannin to be quite useful for preserving animal hides and maybe even their own. Mixed with animal fat and some other useful, stinky ingredients, it protected them from stinging, biting insects and too much sun exposure. I wonder what the SPF might have been?

Then came the chorus again:--

"Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,

Or anything else that is pleasant to drink:

Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine--

And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!"


It's kind of sad to think that part of the trail is slowly slipping away, steadily eroding into the river and eventually washing out to sea. On the drive down to the wilderness area, we passed some construction (destruction?) workers cutting trees and removing their stumps from a parcel of land nearby. I hope that whatever they're building is worth the price, and I'm not talking about money. It's hard to say if Florida will ever do a "180" (degree turn) on land consumption. Construction around where we live has almost ground to a halt, which isn't too good for the local economy, but at least the land gets a much-needed shabbath, or rest.

When I zoomed in on the eroded hill, I saw that someone had left his or her mark behind for the whole world to see. I wonder how many years "BJ" will be around for future hikers to find?

"Ninety times nine!" Alice repeated in despair. "Oh, that'll never be done! I'd better go in at once--" and in she went, and there was a dead silence the moment she appeared. Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among them. "I'm glad they've come without waiting to be asked," she thought: "I should never have known who were the right people to invite!"

After a long stretch of trail, even iced-tea water starts to look inviting. Not too far past this sand bar where we took off our shoes and waded in, a shelter--built by Boy Scouts--awaits the weary walkers, and there are surprises to be found inside it--no, not the Man in the Yellow Shirt and the girl in the blue shorts.

Curious-George bloggers like to read what other people have to say about this place. What did they see, and what were their impressions of it?

Some thoughtful people are trying to encourage a conversation here.

I hope that Chuck Norris enjoyed our little corner of Florida. I'd like to think that you "Go with God" too, Mr. N--whoever you are--when you walk the trails.

Smiling Faces and "Caret" Motives

Now that things appear to have changed for the better in this country, we may be expected to pick up the pace. I am talking about walking instead of driving, taking the stairs and not the elevator, drying clothes on the line, growing our own vegetables; i.e., we must be about the business of making our lives more "green." Does all of this carbon offsetting sound like a lot of work? You bet.



...Alice looked around her in great surprise. "Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!"
"Of course it is," said the Queen. "What would you have it?"
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"



--from Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter II, "The Garden of Live Flowers," by Lewis Carroll--



On our recent trip to visit family in distant homes, we stopped on the way back to our home at a National Seashore site and wildlife refuge near Cape Canaveral. The alligator pictured above immediately attracted our attention, even though it never appeared to move at all. It might seem a little strange for wildlife to be sheltered so near a site laden with TCE (trichloroethylene) and its degradation products such as vinyl chloride. Hubby has been to the Cape before but not as a tourist. He once tracked contaminant plumes in the soil and groundwater there.

"Rockets' red glare" is still seen here occasionally when the shuttle blasts off into space. We may not be in a race with the Russians anymore, but there is much more work to be done in space. Since the economy is in such a meltdown, I wonder where the money will come from to pay for this work?

This building (above) looks a little like a condominium, but it serves a more important purpose than fattening the bank accounts of developers. Can you guess what it is?

We found another building with a lot of history as well as significance for the future close to home. The National Naval Aviation Museum has become a major tourist attraction for NW Florida and serves an important purpose in educating people about naval aviation. Admission is free, so it's a good place to take a large group. Children seem especially impressed with the vast collection of carefully disassembled, restored, and reassembled aircraft and aviation memorabilia.

This type of green-washing would never work for our daughter. Even with a low-flow showerhead, she consumes more water than you would think humanly possible. I wish I could somehow rig up a mandatory one-rain-barrel shower for her. Initiatives seldom seem to work with some consumers, but carefully enforced mandates just might do the trick.

I know these objects are just carets. You know, ^^, empty, lacking things like engines or people to make them fly.

Only imagination can truly take flight in this place. And it does, even for earthbound bloggers who like to walk and then write.

It takes a very large prop to move a ship, and, it appears, even larger props like "carbon offsets" and "RECs" (renewable energy credits) to move a movement. Empty of meaning or purpose, except maybe to enrich some savvy business owners--oops, I mean directors and stakeholders of nonprofit organizations--they have become the watchwords for a new generation of green optimists.

Looking-Glass Insects

"I know you are a friend," the little voice went on: " a dear friend, and an old friend. And you won't hurt me, though I am an insect."

"What kind of insect?" Alice inquired, a little anxiously. What she really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she thought this wouldn't be quite a civil question to ask...

--Chapter III, Looking-Glass Insects, from Through the Looking-Glass in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland--

Though the insect pictured above looks a little unfriendly, a "bug" expert at the Shawnee Audubon Society's Insect Awareness & Appreciation Day this past Saturday informed us that it is merely a moth masquerading as a wasp. I wish I could tell you its correct name, but my hands were too busy with the camera and a water bottle to write down any notes.

I love a welcome that includes a picket fence, and we felt welcome indeed to the diverse gathering of insect aficionados. They included university professors, graduate students, ordinary folks like us, children, and even an Illinois Department of Transportation biologist. I am glad to know the highway folks are concerned about the little critters. I wonder if they have ever thought of doing a random dead-bug count on cars as they leave the state. It would be interesting to find out if vehicles like Hummers or Navigators could perform a really useful service like mosquito abatement.




Now this garden looks like an insect paradise, and in fact it was.


We split up into groups of 10 to 15 people and wandered about the property, guided by some of the experts. They were kind enough to scoop up some of the property's diminutive denizens and display them for our inspection. The children were by far the most enthusiastic participants in the bug safari, not afraid at all to take a step into the tall grass or wade into the water to look for unusual specimens.







A shallow pond added a different dimension to the various areas available for insect habitation.


No, the water was definitely not potable, though I am sure it was not as contaminated as many lakes are these days by farm chemicals. This farm property, which has been donated for the Society's use, has not been sprayed or treated for a very long time. You can be sure we practically bathed in insect repellant before we even stepped foot outside of the car. We have soothed the few, itchy chigger bites that have appeared since Saturday with lavender essential oil.


In addition to the little excursions around the property, we were treated to mini-lectures and insect displays brought by various experts and members of the Society.



If there were names posted somewhere for these specimens, I failed to see them.


"What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where you come from?" the Gnat inquired.
"I don't rejoice in insects at all," Alice explained, "because I'm rather afraid of them--at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them."
"Of course they answer to their names?" the Gnat remarked carelessly.
"I never knew them to do it."
"What's the use of their having names," the Gnat said, "if they won't answer to them?"
"No use to them," said Alice; "but it's useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?"



Of course, the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the country she was going to travel through. "It's something very like learning geography," thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of being able to see a little further.

Several paths mown through the tall grass beckoned to us to follow them, but the wonderful smells of a potluck dinner being set up on long tables behind the barn convinced us to stay nearby.


After a delicious meal, some entertaining insect jokes, a raffle of donated prizes, and some humorous folk music provided by RognboB, we headed to our reserved room at The Mansion in Golconda. We thought it would be a nice place to stay, and it certainly seemed that way at first glance.

The room was spacious, and the bed looked inviting, that is until I pulled back the sheet and found a wolf spider hiding there. You would think I could appreciate it after the kind of day I spent outdoors, but its presence was not at all welcome. Let's just say I dispatched it quickly with a little help from my shoe.

"Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!"

"I shall dream about a thousand pounds tonight, I know I shall!" thought Alice.

We really should not have been surprised to find a bug or two since the house is an old one, but there seemed to be more than just one or two creeping or flying about the room during the night. The next morning we discovered why they seemed so prevalent. The window behind the bed's headboard had a big hole in the glass which was not covered by anything more than a poorly fitting piece of plastic. That fact explains why it seemed like we were camping outside. The insect noises from outside were quite loud, and there was a dampness in the air even though we could hear the air conditioner running.

The proprietors were nice people, but I don't think we will be staying here again.

After a hearty breakfast at the local saloon in Golconda, the only place serving food so early in the day besides an ice cream place (the saloon is for sale, by the way), we drove a few miles east to Cave-in-Rock, which overlooks the Ohio River. We had not been there since the kids were small.

To get to the cave itself, you have to descend these steps. It feels and looks like you are going down to a hidden grotto filled with cryptic messages.

Chert nodules like this one might not seem like a cryptic message, but there is apparently some mystery as to their origin. Scientists still are not sure what they are or why they adorn the rock. My husband says they might be remnants of ancient sea creatures, since microscopic examination suggests that they have a spicule-like structure.

This passageway was provided by fractures in the rock, which were probably precipitated by an ancient earthquake.



Over time, flood waters have carved out a spacious cavern, supposedly used by river pirates from time to time. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the clink of coins and drunken laughter echoing off the cave walls.

I wanted to explore the back part of the cave, but for some reason the batteries in my camera showed signs of weakening, which was strange because I had just replaced them a week earlier. I had to seek out some light to preserve what was left of the battery power. Fresh batteries, of course, waited for me in the car. There were just too many steps between us to even think about going to get them.

It's too bad this cave floods every now and then. Otherwise, it would be valuable as waterfront property with a breathtaking view of the river.

My husband has told me some wild stories about his spelunking adventures before we met. I'm just glad he doesn't get excited by those kinds of activities anymore.

We left the way we came. There is no other passage in or out of the cave large enough to accommodate humans.

Just above the opening of the cave, we spied this name and date carved into the rock ceiling. The Coles must have either used a very tall ladder or been standing in a boat during a flood.

Outside and back on top of the bluff, we saw a barge being pushed up the river.

I wonder if the crew members ever think about the pirates who once hid out in the cave nearby.


At least these days, river workers have cell phones and radios to keep in touch with family and the authorities during the long periods of time they have to be on the water.

The scenery here is quite beautiful and unlike anything else in this Land of Lincoln.


I guess Sunday was too muggy for many people to be visiting the park or having a picnic. By noon, we were ready to head back north and take a nap in the air-conditioned apartment.

Before we left, hubby spied an unusually colored caterpillar in the grass beneath our feet. I wonder what its final form will be after it undergoes metamorphosis. Will it become a simple moth or a gorgeous butterfly?

"Crawling at your feet," said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), "you may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings are thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar."