Cody loved all animals, big and small. but she had a special, tender place in her heart for ants. They were so serious! They worked so hard!
                       from Cody and the Fountain of Happiness
                                      written by Tricia Springstubb
                                         illustrated by Eliza Wheeler
                                             Candlewick Press, 2015
   
    When my brother was very young, he caught a caterpillar. I suppose he wondered how it moved and so he separated all of its eighteen segments. He was a smart and curious child who grew into a smart and curious adult. 
    Mom found most of the segments in his pants pocket before they went through the washer and dryer. I learned a couple of things just by watching and listening.
        1. Empty all pockets before putting clothes in the wash.
        2. Be respectful of all life.
    While Mom did not scream (she was not a screamer) or punish my brother for harming nature (she knew he was curious and sensitive), she did talk to all three of us about how important it is to protect those beings more vulnerable than us. We took the lesson to heart.
    I still take insects and spiders, and one time I shooed a baby squirrel, outside. Just this past Sunday morning, we were visiting my daughter and her family when she went into the kitchen to refill our coffee cups. She did not scream either, but I detected a note of urgency when she called me to “come see something.”
    My husband used a paper cup and an index card to escort a large Charlotte to her more suitable living space, outside. All of us lived to tell the tale.
    It might make one feel powerful to squash a bug, but what good can that accomplish?
    Turns out, plenty. Especially if the bug is a spotted lanternfly. When I learned that my very own Mahoning County, Ohio, is under quarantine, I wanted to know more.
    Despite their name, they aren’t good fliers. Lanternflies are plant hoppers indigenous to Asia but are now found in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. While they’re not dangerous to humans in an overt way, they don’t sting, bite, or burrow under our skin, they are a threat. Spotted lanternflies infest crops including soybeans, grapes, apples, and stone fruits.
    Besides feeding on the crops, the ODNA (Ohio Department of Natural Resources) warns that both nymphs and adults “produce copious amounts of sticky, sugary liquid known as honeydew.” The honeydew is attractive to ants, flies, and wasps. It can also be colonized by “sooty mold,” a fungus that can ruin grape and hops harvests and decrease photosynthesis.
    While they suck up the sap from over 70 kinds of trees, spotted lanternflies love the invasive Tree-of-Heaven best, themselves an Asian import. The trees are extreme pollen producers with extensive root systems so are difficult to eradicate. Penn State Extension Service has lots of information here. The trees were brought to the Philadelphia area in the late 1700s as a valued, unique, fast-growing ornamental shade tree. They can grow to 80 feet and up to six feet in diameter.
    As of this week, at least 17 states are infested with the spotted lanternfly. People in quarantined areas should look for evidence of the bugs before traveling to another area. Here's information with pictures from the USDA to help us identify their various stages.
    If you see one (or many) report the sighting to your Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
    Find contacts from the USDA APHIS and click here to find your state’s form.
    Click here to find information from the National Plant Board for each state.
    According to an article from CBS News last year, authorities from the USDA encourage people to “do whatever they can to stop the pests from spreading.” 
    Spotted lanternflies do have a few natural predators. Praying mantises eat them. Chickens and cardinals have been seen eating them in Pennsylvania. Two species of wasps are being studied to see if they will eat the pests, but so far, the spotted lanternflies reproduce faster than any of their predators can keep them in check. Hence the government urges us all to stomp. 
    Beware, though, warns the authors of an article from Axios.com. Some native insects look similar, to even some moths and beetles.
    Beginning in August 2020, the Audubon Society asked its community to “post photos of birds, other insects, and spiders eating the spotted lanternfly.” Thirty-three different species have been seen “chowing down.” The Society is currently researching whether “there may be a way to encourage native wildlife to eat more bad bugs.”
    You might remember my brother’s caterpillar adventure. I used it to introduce the cicada invasion of last May (Truly Buggy May 14). I related the story very differently, though, and decided to keep both versions. Memory is a tricky thing. 
    It appears the lesson, All Life is Precious, is more important than my brother’s adventure. 
    But bopping dangerous bugs, even if they are beautiful, may not be such a bad idea.

    My eleven-year-old grandson recommended Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson (Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown and Company, 2022). Winner of the 2023 Newbery Award and the Coretta Scott King Author Award, it is an historic fictional account of two children who ran away from their plantation into the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and became part of a Maroon community. Although Freewater is not a real community, it is “[l]oosly based on a little-mined but important piece of history… [A]n inspiring and deeply empowering story of survival, love, and courage.” from the publisher. Recommended by me, too!
                                      -—be curious! (and observant)​

   Albert picked up a blue ball and headed for the blue pile. Then he stopped. Should it go in the round, roll-y pile instead? Or maybe the big pie?
                                                from A Mousy Mess
                                           written by Laura Driscoll
                                      illustrated by Deborah Melmon
                                                     Kane Press, 2014
    
    I fell asleep Thursday night wondering what my Tuesday Blog topic would be. I dreamed I was lost in a fictional place that included a library. I entered easily and saw some people I knew. Getting out again was causing a problem, though. I was lost and only a particular Dewey Decimal number could show me the way out.
    Who dreams of Dewey numbers?! Who even thinks of them during the daytime?
    My dreambrain kept chanting 796.57. Over and over and over. When I woke up, much relieved to find myself in my warm bed next to my husband (who also was not lost in my dream anymore), I reached for my phone (which is so much more than a phone) and clicked open my library app. The number I typed in was sure to be a forehead slapper. But it wasn’t. Not only were no books listed in 796.57, the closest match was Gary Paulsen’s Woodsong at 796.5 and 796.5092. 
    Without getting overly deep in the weeds, 092 is the Dewey mark for biography, so those libraries that added the suffix call attention to the autobiographical nature of the work. 
    Also, listed in 796.52 is John Krakauer’s famous true account of the tragedy on Mount Everest. 
    I was left with a phantom catalog number for a subject (something like Winter Survival Mountain Hiking?) I know nothing about.    
    Weird.
    First off, let me make it clear that while I like to keep my life uncluttered, tidy, and in good order, I’m not always successful. I’m no Melvil Dewey. I bet he had no idea that his idea to organize library materials would morph into the DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) that is used all over the world to organize all the world’s knowledge.
    Melvil Dewey graduated from Amherst College in 1874 and was immediately hired by the college to reclassify its materials collections. Until his tenure, books were sorted by size or color or when they were acquired, not necessarily by content. Each library had its own system.
    I started thinking about categories of knowledge and how to sort, in a general way, and remembered “Twenty Questions,” a game I played when I was young. I played with my kids and grandkids, too. Animal/Vegetable/Mineral are the usual categories. When my younger granddaughter tried to get people to guess her answer Unicorn, her mom added “Imaginary,” to their category list. 
    Dewey went deeper than Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral though. Using ten well-defined categories, he divided each into well-developed hierarchies and a rich network of relationships among their various topics.
    But Melvil Dewey is not the only classifier. 
    We all categorize. I organize my spice cupboard alphabetically. I know some people who group the spices they use often away from the ones they don’t use as much. Still other people might choose the size and shape of the container. The object of sorting things, no matter what they are, is to make it easy to find them again.
    When young students came to my library on a field trip, I told them the call number on the spine of a book is its address. Use it to find out where a book lives on the shelves. 
    And maybe more importantly, if you don’t know a book’s address, don’t put it back willy-nilly on a shelf. Librarians and other staff spend countless hours finding lost materials.
    “Like goes with like” is a phrase you might hear in the library world. It’s all about being able to find stuff.
    And how about Carl Linnaeus? His General Taxonomy is also systematic. Moving from the most general to the most specific, all living beings can be described in microscopic detail.          
    I do like order.
    But when Kamala Harris tells us our similarities as humans are more important than our differences, it doesn’t have anything to do with sorting or organizing spices on a shelf or describing the difference between an enormous blue whale or the teeny krill it eats by the ton every day. It won’t help anyone tell the difference between butter and a butterfly or an elephant and an elephant ear. 
    Our similarities are what make us human. We all need clean food, sturdy shelter, and adequate clothing. We need to nurture and be nurtured. We need the common languages of love and music and emotion. We need shared memories and a way to communicate them with each other. We need contentment with what we have while maintaining hope for something better. We need to dream and believe that we can make our own and each other’s dreams come true.
    Some people, like my younger daughter, are natural catalogers. They see similarities and group them easily. Finding similarities leads to acceptance, growth, and understanding.
    Like with like, as they say.    
I’m reading The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens (Seventh Street Books, 2014). I don’t usually choose murder mysteries, but this one is on my daughter’s book club’s reading list. A college student, assigned to write a biography, chooses an elderly resident in a nursing home. He learns about a murder, a cover-up, and the past he and his subject try to keep secret from themselves. Recommended.


                              Be curious! (and embrace similarities
                                   when and where you find them)

     “Maybe one day you’ll break out of that shell, grow wings, and fly away,” says the monarch.
     “I doubt it,” says Hurry.
     “It happened to me,” replies the monarch, thinking about the extraordinary morning when she opened her wings. 
                                        from Hurry and the Monarch
                                       written by Antoine Ó Flatharta
                                                 illustrated by Meilo So
                                          Knopf/Random House, 2005

    My youngest grandson’s favorite color is orange. It’s been his favorite color since he was a baby and he’s in a select group of people who share that favorite color. After climbing out of a deep! Google rabbit hole to verify that, I fell back to my own observations of 3- and 4-year-olds at storytime. When they had a choice during our “craft time,” most kids picked blue or red whatevers. Orange was least-picked every time.
    Orange is full of energy. From the waning green that exposes Autumn’s vibrancy to brightly colored pumpkins and cantaloupe-colored sunsets, orange is everywhere right about now.
    Because it is highly visible, orange is the color hunters wear. Wear Orange Day is set aside at the beginning of June each year to highlight the need to stop gun violence. You can find information about it here. Roadside barrels and pylons are orange, too. Their high visibility helps keep drivers and pedestrians safe.
    Mother Nature loves orange. You can probably list dozens of her favorites. Everything from kumquats to clownfish are orange. For fun, take a peek at these examples. 
    But maybe the most-loved are monarch butterflies. According to SaveOurMonarch.org, legend has it we call them monarchs after Prince William of Orange, later King William III of England because he was so loved by Dutch settlers in the New World.
    Starting in early October, millions of monarchs begin their over 2,500-mile migration from southern Canada to central and southwestern Mexico. A recent article in National Geographic says “[t]hey carpet the trees and paint the sky black and orange.”
    The monarch season in Mexico lasts four months, until March when they begin their return north. “It’s an eight-month migration traversing the continent and back, during which five consecutive generations are born and die.”
    They are one of the few insects known to migrate to warmer climates. After recovering from their southern migration by hibernating in the warm Mexican sunshine, monarchs get busy finding a mate. By March or April, they’re back home! They look for a milkweed plant where they will lay their eggs. About four days later, baby caterpillars emerge and begin eating. They are fussy eaters. Milkweed is their only food source. Each caterpillar can eat the leaves off an entire milkweed plant in about two weeks. Now fully grown, it attaches itself to a fresh milkweed plant and envelops itself in its chrysalis. Another 10 days and it’s ready to emerge, dry its beautiful orange and black and white wings, find a mate, and lay its eggs.
    According to the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, “[m]onarch butterflies typically live from 2 to 6 weeks except for the last generation of the year, which can live up to 8 to 9 months.” You’ll find lots more info on the FAQ sheet at that link.
    Although some organizations and individuals clamber for monarchs to be listed as endangered, MonarchWatch has reassuring statistics on its blog from September 4, 2024. Tap the link to see the post.
    In short, monarchs are not to be taken for granted. Their numbers, like numbers of birds, insects, and plants have plummetted to larger or smaller degrees. Programs from the Symbolic Monarch Migration which connects students from Canada, the US, and Mexico to teach them about the monarch’s magnificent migration to local milkweed planting promotions to direction and support for home breeding, MonarchWatch.org says “[t]here is ample data showing that monarch are resilient, redundant, and adaptive.” As such, no data has emerged to justify listing the monarch as endangered or threatened.
    That said, habitat destruction is the monarch’s greatest threat. We are losing about a million acres of grassland every year. Along with the habitat goes the milkweed.
    Monarchs thrive on milkweed. One of the best ways to help ensure they are able to reproduce is to help make their food available. Milkweed is easy to plant and grow, but so many varieties make a little research necessary to find out which kind will grow best in your area. The National Wildlife Federation’s blog on native milkweeds is a great resource. 
    In Mesoamerican culture, monarchs are said to personify the souls of departed loved ones. The monarchs arrive in Mexico at the beginning of November which coincides with Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations.

I’m reading The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet (Henry Holt and Company, 2022). From the publisher: “Based on rigorous historical detective work, this book takes us from a chance encounter in the street into the sanctuaries of the city’s elite, the shadows of its brothels, and the despair of its debtors’ prison. The Sewing Girl’s Tale shows that if our laws and our culture were changed by a persistent young woman and the power of words two hundred years ago they can be changed again.”
                                                         Be curious! (and fly high)

...a bit of sympathy and compassion stirs inside me...I know what it is like to be disappointed... 
                                   from Me and the Pumpkin Queen
                                         written by Marlane Kennedy
​                                                    Greenwillow, 2007            
                                                                                                 
    Every year since 1846 (except 2020 when it was closed for COVID-19) our county holds its Fair and our little city is host.
    Like all county fairs, ours shows all kinds of farm animals. I could stand in the rooster building all day (if I didn’t have anything else to do) and just listen. A crowing rooster has such a unique sound and a unique message. Wake up! Literally and figuratively is a command I need to hear daily.
    Equipment large and small, is on display. Tractors whose tires stand taller than me do all kinds of work from tilling a field to harvesting it. And produce. A whole building is filled with apples. Corn, hay, local honey, and pumpkins and gourds are arranged like art. 
    Flowers, photography, and fine art are yours for the viewing.
    But the Fair is interactive, too. You can milk a cow and judge a rooster crowing contest. You can enter anything from brownies and jam to handknit afghans and sweaters and freshly carded wool. From ceramics and pottery to quilts, photographs, and fine art. All are judged for ribbons and recognition.
    Dress a gourd in the year’s theme. You could walk away with a ribbon there, too.
    You can play games on the midway and come home with a giant stuffie or a goldfish (or not). You can eat your way from one end of its 353 acres to the other. Anything that can be fried and/or stuck on a stick will probably be for sale.
    Entertainment included The Lennon Sisters in 1956, and each year since 1968, the Fair has been host to a diversity of acts including Bob Hope, The Monkees, Wierd Al, and the Pentatonics.
    Many years ago, I entered pumpkin muffins. It was my first time entering anything and my excitement overran my need to read the entry rules and regs booklet. I frosted my muffins with cream cheese frosting, yum, but for obvious reasons (now I get it) cream cheese frosting does not hold up very well in 80+ degree weather in a hot building for six days. I’m sure they were chucked right away!
    Many years later, but still many years ago, I entered my challah recipe. It’s an egg-based yeast bread that’s braided and served each Sabbath in traditional Jewish homes. 
    I have a competitive streak. And a desire to prove that I can bake, even though some people say I’m not a very good cook. After the pumpkin muffin fiasco, I was determined to do everything correctly and bring home a beautiful blue ribbon.
    I got out my kitchen timer. I timed how long it took from proofing the yeast to the final second of the 10-minute kneading session. I got out my kitchen scale and weighed each of the three lumps that would become the braided strands. I timed each of the risings, added in the baking time and cooling time and travel time. It’s a seven minute walk from my house to the Arts & Crafts Building in the fairgrounds. 
    Everything took a loooonnng time. I got up at 4:00 am. 
With one more practice week to go, the braid needed more practice than the bread! and ribbon or not, I would end up with a freezer full of delicious challah. That could count as a win.
     My recipe book says it’s a prize-winning challah. On the first day of the Fair, I went by myself to look for that blue ribbon sitting on my golden challah that reminds me of my gram’s silver old-lady-braid and my own chestnut young-girl-braid. I did not find that big, blue ribbon, but was pretty ecstatic to find a shimmery, white honorable mention ribbon adorning my loaf.
    And that’s not the end of the Fair story. 
    Yesterday was Labor Day. 
    Since we live so close to the Fairgrounds, we use our lawn for private parking. Each year I hire several kids to help. For most of them, it’s their first job.
    My first job was babysitting for my neighbor’s three kids, two and a half, four, and five years old. I was eleven.
    It wasn’t really babysitting. I played with the kids while their mom was “keeping house.” You know, laundry, dusting, mopping the kitchen floor and such. She was a housewife in a day before we had a name for stay-at-home moms. The moms mostly all stayed home. It was summer so we played outside. I’d give the kids lunch and my job was finished. My neighbor paid me 50 cents an hour for a couple of hours of work.
    I learned responsibility, time management, and how to have fun.
The kids looked up to me. I learned to respect myself and trust my decisions.
    I just spent a week working closely with twelve smart, creative, and high-energy teenagers. They mostly reported for work on time, stayed focused, and worked well together. I hope they also learned responsibility, time management, and self-respect.
    I know they had fun. I did, too!
    The world will be in good hands when these kids are in charge.

No book this week. Too much Fair!
                                        Be curious! (and productive)