Behold the Ant Lion

November 20, 2014

...CWkfAyfBDHE Cunning. Efficient. Voracious. This is the ant lion. This is a baby ant lion, the larval stage. It makes you shudder to think what it’s like when it’s grown up, right? Behold the adult ant lion: It looks like a damselfly or dragonfly but is not related to either. The adult ant lion is sometimes called an antlion lacewing. They are not much seen by humans, because despite those beautiful wings, they are weak fliers, and mostly lurch aro...

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Babylon Ain’t Falling

Mr. Homegrown

November 2, 2020

Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

...thy. It leads to paranoia and the feeling that a civil war in the Heart of Babylon is imminent. Whatever happens in the next week it’s not time to make brunch reservations. In this election we face a choice between a kind of incompetent proto-fascism (real fascists would organize the buses better at their rallies) and neoliberalism. Proto-fascism is worse but neoliberalism sows the seeds of fascism by worsening conditions for working class and mid...

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The Blue Bear

Mrs. Homegrown

September 9, 2016

Thoughtstylings

36 Comments

When I was a baby–perhaps for on the occasion of my first or second birthday, no one remembers anymore– my great-grandmother, my mother’s grandmother, gave me this stuffed bear, which she had made herself. Now, almost 50 years later, I am faced with the task of sending Blue Bear off to the landfill. My relationship with Blue Bear is an odd one. He was never one of my favorite stuffed animals, and yet I have kept him with me all these years, while...

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Adopt an Indigo Plant in Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown

May 23, 2014

Events, Gardening

6 Comments

...hang in a prominent place in your home, lest you forget about your little baby! There are a limited number of seedlings available. Please reserve yours by filling out the form below. For those of you not able to pick up a seedling here in Los Angeles, I am willing to experiment with shipping them directly to you in the mail for the cost of postage. I have zero real world experience with this but have been reading up on the process and believe tha...

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What is that black and orange bug in my garden?

Mrs. Homegrown

May 6, 2014

Gardening, Insects, Pests

14 Comments

...a-based, but the advice tends to be applicable elsewhere. For more climate-specific advice, check your own local University Extension Services. Final note: Don’t mix up any of the above with baby ladybugs/ladybirds, which eat even more aphids than adult lady bugs. They look like this: all the pictures in this post courtesy of wikimedia commons....

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