New Year's Eve

It is New Year's Eve, a time of reflection and the making of New Year's resolutions. A time for taking inventory of one's successes and failures. So-called successes and failures for those who measure things strictly in monetary worth. I have nothing to show in either category, since I remained pretty much status quo in 2009. Spiralling downward financially as I made small strides spiritually, as I have done for the past few years. Personally speaking, my greatest success was in nursing a feral cat, Ponzo, back to health, so to speak. My greatest failure, pertinent to my own little world, was in my lack of organization, because my house remains disorganized, despite all the previous years' resolutions to get organized--I write of paper clutter! Therefore, my New Year's resolution is to never again make another resolution to get organized. It will get done when it gets done--if I feel like it. I would rather reflect and give thanks for my family, which includes my cats and Rebel, and friends, who mean the world to me. And I would also like to thank my followers and the Google spiders who keep my blog listed on the Google search engine. Oh, I am suddenly seized with the desire to make another New Year's resolution--I hope to at least double the number of public followers on my blog in 2010, and since I have only two registered, public followers at the time of this writing, I hope to have a minimum of four by 2011. Now here is a New Year's resolution I can live with--I think!

Walking Sticks Mating

I promised a friend I would take a photo of a walking stick for her, so that she could show her husband what they look like, and today was the first time this year that I saw the stick-like insect. Only it turned out to be two walking sticks mating. Out of curiosity, I googled walking sticks and learned that they are listed under the Phasmatodea or Phasmida order of insects. As depicted in my photo, the female is much larger than the male. By the way, very few walking sticks are male. I knew they are vegetarians. However, I did not know that sometimes the male rides on a female's back for a couple of weeks, until she is ready to mate with him, and their coupling may last for hours, days or even weeks.

Black Bear Calling Card

When I glanced out a window this morning, I saw Zorro standing over something in the yard. Fearing the worst, I ran outside in hopes of perhaps saving the life of a squirrel or other small creature in the feral cat's clutches. But when I got close, I discovered Zorro examining a black clump with great interest. Apparently, a bear had dined at a neighbor's bird feeder. Anyway, I went back inside the house and googled black bear poop--I found scat. The proper term for bear poop is scat. My vocabulary word for the day.