Here's Unidentified Cute Bug as of . . yesterday? Or possibly the day before - my thistles are full of these things and I've been photographing them lots. I don't remember exactly when this was taken, but I'm pretty sure it's the same bug - was found on the same plant, and these critters appear to be homebodies, so far as I've observed. It almost makes me feel bad for pulling up the thistles; at least, I'm leaving the thistles growing up out of the compost heap, which is where I found this guy. I'm afraid the bugs who took up residence in the thistles growing out of the veggie garden and the flower gardens are out of luck. But anyway, bug:
. . . and this is what bug did this afternoon! It graduated! It needs a little hat to throw.
. . and here are some more random bug pictures. These are all totally un-edited and even un-cropped, just for the heck of it, because I think I rely too much on cropping and I'm trying to get better at just taking a well-composed picture from the start. This is somewhat challenging with a point-and-shoot auto-focus camera, as it wants to focus on what's in the middle, and generally speaking, sticking your subject smack dab in the middle of your picture is not good composition. But, you can focus before you take the shot and then move the camera, keeping the shutter button semi-depressed, and it holds its focus - which leaves it up to you to make sure you stay within the range of focus and don't back up or move forward slightly. Which sounds easy, until you factor in that when you're taking pictures of things less than a centimeter long, in macro mode, using the digital zoom, the actual slice of space that's in-focus narrows to like, maybe a millimeter. So, yay for a challenge.
More bugs:
(That is my finger, and the bug perched on it is a refugee from an uprooted thistle. Poor homeless bug. Oh well, there's still plenty of prime real estate for it to choose from - the thistles are taking over the world, seriously. And it's a younger version of the same species as the Graduating Bug above.)
Yet More Bugs:
In rather less cheerful news, my guinea pig Calliope died two nights ago. She and Oliver, the cat, were buddies. The cat, who has had no prior experience of the fact that things die (besides bugs that he catches, and he's rather perplexed when they stop moving, too - unless he eats them, anyway), is freaked. Not as freaked as the other guinea pig, though, Lyra.
Lyra is a profoundly antisocial creature, and has been, I suspect, from embryo-hood. At least, I never remember her being friendly, cuddly, or in general pleased to be interacting with other creatures - except Calliope.
She's presently refusing to leave her little igloo house. I've hauled the igloo up next to the food dish and thus averted her starving herself, but I feel bad. I'm not getting another guinea pig - aside from the astronomically poor odds that they'd actually get along (see above re: maladjusted antisocial cavy), I think I just need a break from small creatures. I gave up pet rats a few years back, in favor of theoretically-longer-lived guinea pigs. Of course, Calliope just died at roughly 3 years of age, i.e. a typical lifespan for a domesticated rat. Oh well. I'm apparently not meant to have a non-morbid existence, but I'm going to attempt it - so no more rodents for a while. At least until I'm in a better place financially and can better afford things like CT scans for guinea pigs with undiagnosable chronic illnesses (Calliope did not in fact have a CT scan - it was just not within the realm of feasibility - but she did have x-rays, that showed nothing of use.)
Anyway, the perfect and ideal solution to this situation would be for Oliver and Lyra to decide they like each other. Given Lyra's only interaction with Oliver ever has been to a.) run away, or b.) try to bite him, and Oliver once slashed her poor little nose in response to option b., I'm not really holding my breath for this to occur.
