Friday, July 26, 2013

All You Need Is ...

a wooden spoon.

This past weekend was a blessing. While it did get hot enough in the afternoon that the AC kicked on, the mornings were so wonderful. I spent time deadheading the flowers and cleaned off the deck. I've mentioned before how robins are such dirty birds. The wildlife in suburbia comes to visit my deck on occasion and I find sticks and leaves and footprints and all sorts of things on the deck.


The birdbath needs to be cleaned this weekend. Blog post in that, for sure.

Anyway, when I clean litter boxes, about every 6 months, one of them gets completely emptied and swapped out for a different one. I put the emptied "used" box on the deck and let the rain and sunshine and fresh air clean it. There are no harsh chemicals and letting the sunshine beat on the box sterilizes it, after a fashion. I've had a box on the deck for 3 months now and it's time to rotate it back into use.

This box collected rain water and in that water, I found this.


He's about an inch in length. I should have pulled out a ruler to show relative size. He was "swimming" upside down, struggling to right himself. Eventually, he would have drowned. I got a wooden spoon, scooped him out and turned him over.

I have no idea what kind of beetle this is other than, well, he's tan. It's bigger than a June bug and those are a darker brown, tinged with red. I couldn't find any information on what kind of beetle this might be but, I admit to not searching for hours. The Internet is a marvelous place in that information is at your fingertips, but the sheer volume of information available can make a search more like a slog through molasses, uphill, in January.

Once he got thoroughly dried and warmed by the sun, he was off. Maybe I gave new life to something that should have been squashed. I don't know. But, it's an interesting insect, nonetheless.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

2 comments:

  1. A Spotted Grapevine Beetle, maybe? It's in the Junebug family.

    ReplyDelete
  2. June bug? Ugh. At least this one didn't bang into the window screen in a failed attempt to get into the house.

    ReplyDelete