Tag: Dorothy Mayer

Dorothy Saves the Day at the Wildscape

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Catherine Johnson

While we were hiking Mother Neff State Park, Patricia Coombs was coordinating chores at the Wildscape for the monthly workday.

The day became warm and bending over to plant resulted in Patricia becoming ill.  Dorothy Mayer and her daughter, Traci, were there working as well. Dorothy poured water over Patricia’s head and cared for Traci after she was stung by something.

Dorothy Mayer taking charge

Much pruning was done and two flats of Mexican Hat and Black-eyed Susan were planted, plus a bed prepared for Texas wildflowers.  Dorothy brought the workday to a successful end.

Traci survived the sting.

Note that we have a bunch of blogs to upload, because our blogging team (of one person) has been having computer issues then had the nerve to go camping. At least she did a lot of iNaturalist observations while she was there. Apologies that our blog entries weren’t entered in a timely manner.

Cucumbers, Dill, and Surprise Butterflies

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Dorothy Mayer

Last year I had quite a few Eastern Black Swallowtails eating most of my dill. I was okay with that, as almost all of my cucumbers were too bitter to can. The weather got too hot too fast for my cucumbers. So, I was disappointed not to be able to can any pickles last year.

The dill was fine, though, and the beautiful butterflies loved it and laid lots of eggs underneath the leaves. When the caterpillars got big enough, I put them in my butterfly house along with a bunch of dill and watched until they all got into a chrysalis. A few did come out & looked healthy. They flew good so I assumed they were healthy.

However, I had three chrysalis that didn’t look right but, I just left them alone. I figured after numerous freezes that they were all dead in there. (I had my butterfly incubator on the back porch where it’s not heated nor cooled.)

Nope. One by one those butterflies managed to come out, and we got to watch them fly away, which was just super fun and amazing. I plan to plant a ton of extra dill this year and try that again. I think it’s a great activity for a learning experience for children and adults alike.

So please, don’t put chemicals on your plants, because you will kill “good bugs” with the “bad bugs.” Poison doesn’t discriminate. It kills ALL bugs and possibly birds, too, as birds eat the insects and feed them to their babies.

Happy Spring Everyone.

Butterfly surprises

The Bee Story

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

By Dorothy Mayer

So, I saw the following story online today (see screenshots from Facebook below). Some time ago, I’d likely have blown it off as a pretty farfetched tale. But I couldn’t help but think about an incident I experienced at my house a couple of years ago.

This story brought to mind about me seeing a wasp nest on our RV bumper about sixty feet from our house. I was worried about somebody getting stung, so I told Hubs that we should probably do something about them. So, he takes his handy pliers and pulls it off the bumper, as nothing was on it at the time. Then, he laid it on a little table by our porch swing that was 60 feet away from and out of sight of the RV bumper it came off. After that, we pretty much forgot about it.

Later that evening I happened to look over there and saw about three or four wasps back on it lying on that little table far away from that bumper we pulled it from. I was amazed that they’d looked for it and found it in a totally different place than it was supposed to be.

So, do I think this bee story is farfetched? I think not.

I think insects have way more sense than we realize. After all, we don’t know what we don’t know.

[saw]

To learn more about insects and all the other nature in Milam County, consider signing up for our next class! Contact ElCaminoRealMasterNaturalist@gmail.com and we’ll get you in touch with our new class team.