I think the red ones are European hornets and the blue ones are baldface hornets, but nobody calls them that and I'm not exactly an entomologist.
Sounds like heaven.
I'm part of the problem: I see a bunch of hornets, I shriek and evacuate without asking for ID. I don't know who's in the lavender: they're buzzy and I don't want a fight.
I have even seen nature healing as a kid. I vividly remember walking to the store with my dad in the city and we encountered a little green mantis. It wasn't a huge thing but it still gave me hope that life finds a way even in the most bleak of circumstances.
Nah it's not one of those HOA bullshit rules. I can leave the bins out in the pavement if I wanted to. The problem is that we hardly use them, most of the time I have trouble filling a single black bin bag over the fortnight between collections, so the bins are normally incredibly light. The front of my house is pretty open and so if you leave the bins anywhere other than sheltered by the trees you will go out and find that the wind's blown them over overnight and now you've got loose recycling bits or bags of dogshit spilled everywhere. I could make a little shelter for them but under the trees is simply the most convenient place for it, which would probably not help the wasp problem. The front of the property is entirely covered by the sap dripping tree and the front of the house is flat so it'd be a kinda ugly to have something sticking out. I have instead taken to negotiating with the wasps, for the month they are there I just shove a stick in the handle and flip it open and with a long enough stick they all fly off for just about long enough for me to get in and do what I need to. They annoy me enough to complain about them but in reality all it results in is an extra 5 minutes in total per year at the absolute maximum.
I know it's not really gardening or plants. But I have only seen a singular cat on my property ever. Other than the dumb lump of fur I used to own. One day I went to go outside and there was the most picture perfect cat, I think it'd be called a Balinese. Some absolutely perfect cat, spotless cream fur and almost photoshop level of blue eyes. It just sat on slab directly outside the back door and stayed there for about an hour. Not laying, sitting, as if it was modelling for some cat food commercial but instead it was just me. Also had no collar which is pretty rare for this country. I thought maybe it was an escapee or a stray but it was so perfect that there's no way it doesn't have someone to groom it. And then it disappeared. I have not seen it since, ok yea the dog doesn't help but even in the years from seeing it to getting a dog I didn't see it again. Had never seen it before either. Just some absolute picture perfect cat came and sat on my doorstep for an hour and that was the only time I have ever seen any cat in the decade of living here.
I've already said I love stan tigrinis. But have you seen any of the proper fancy things? One species Neofinetia falcata has a load of different varieties and some absolutely fucking retarded prices, 300+usd for something with a stem/crown smaller than your thumb. One of my personal favourites is Houmeiden which has cute pink roots. Also saw one sell for like 400usd. I just say that because it's one of those like culturally important orchids in Japan and a lot of them have them growing in those types of moss ball.
I am currently caring for a Monnierara Millennium Magic 'Witchcraft' which is one of the few "black" orchid hybrids which I've seen sell between 60-150$. My first expert level orchid that I'd like to cultivate however is the endangered Ghost orchid native to Florida, specifically the Dendrophylax Lindenii, because I would like to have one in a terrarium. The Neotinetia Falcata has rather quickly captured my attention and one or more will likely find its way into my collection. Another fixation of mine would be producing my own Vanilla beans from the Vanilla Planifolia which is actually rather affordable and available. It is a creeping vine though that will eat your home if you let it.
Time for me to flex a little with my near 0% mosquito population because of the nice bat & swallow families near my house doing the Lord's work. And the cute little jumping spiders too.
I tried a mosquito bucket recently and i already see all the larvae and shit building up. Isnt that cool?
I'm excited to see someone else knows about these. Outside of Japan, there's very little fanfare for these orchids, which is a shame. It may be my local conditions (Southwest VA, Zone 7a), but I find my Neofinetia loves the cooler nights during our Appalachian summers. I've had this plant in my possession for 8 years and 3 separate moves across multiple states and hardiness zones with no complaint.
Well uhh, I don't mean to burst your bubble but my gf is Japanese and she's the reason I found out about them lol. I think the main reason that they're not very popular outside of Japan is that if you remove the cultural aspect the majority of them are little tiny things with even smaller flowers. A lot of them are just not very impressive. They're cool to an already small group of people that are into orchids and even then the size and price makes them a bit unappealing to a lot of them. In general most of the small orchids don't really get much love, I love pluerothallids but they hardly get any love. Though a lot of the other people I know that are into orchids are the 'oap retirement project' types so maybe they are just physically incapable of seeing the flowers lol.
Fair enough. It may just be me being a huge fucking weeb, but I do like how its beauty only really shines when you look closely and intently.
