Walking the Silver Spoon

Winter Porch

I miss the world outdoors,
in the way I knew it on warmer days.
The trails I walked, their hills and curves—
like tracing the bend of a spoon, turning it, over and over again, in my hand.
Even in stillness, without birds or bugs or blooms to discover,
the constancy of the walk I found very settling.
There is comfort in the familiar.

Icy Trees through upstairs window

I sit indoors, now, by a crackling wood stove, birds scattered on the fresh, white snow beyond the window.
Around me, a wealth of things and the faces I love.
A cup of hot tea at my elbow.
Browsing the photographs of a warmer day's walk -- almost as if in real time.
But, still, there is something missing.

Something that I find, only in my walking,
leaving wealth and warmth behind.
So, I walk.

Winter Walk

Crossing Paths

Praying Mantis egg case waiting on icy stems

Praying Mantis, female
from summer field

The Great Predator

Chinese Mantid

Last summer I noticed it, too--almost as an overnight change.
Dozens of mantids--where yesterday there had been none, hanging in their upside down pose, densely scattered throughout the flower tops.

The larger ones are the most in number here, Chinese Mantids, with only a few of the smaller European Mantids among them. This year, choosing goldenrod as a hunting ground, where their long, slender green and brown-winged bodies blend perfectly with its leaves.

raptorial forelegs

They step forward slowly and deliberately. Then patiently wait, motionless, for unsuspecting prey.

The wide-eyed triangular head is quick to turn in response to the most minor movement. Front legs grasping in a flash that which wanders carelessly too close. Hungrily devouring every morsel, headfirst. Until only a small scrap of a leg remains.

Mantid with prey

Mantid eating

voracious appetite

I kept one in a terrarium on the porch for a few days, bringing her offerings each morning from the plants in the field. My collection of 2 Harvestmen (Daddy Longlegs), 2 Milkweed Bugs, a shield bug, a katydid and a caterpillar was eaten before noon with no complaint. Even while devouring one held in her right foreleg, the left caught a bug and held it tightly in its vise-like grasp. A two-fisted eater!
(Harvestmen are eaten legs first!)

posing before release to field

Small world

I was in the very midst of them and hadn’t even noticed.
The finest spun creations, that from my standing position, seemed to be no more than sparkling masses in the grass--catching the morning sun.


On my hands and knees, it is quite different. For when I enter their world, what was without form from a distance, immediately reveals its beauty. Each no more than a couple inches across and designed by an artist the size of my freckle, I settle in and watch.
A visitor to the colony of the tiniest orb-weavers imaginable.

Last night’s dew hangs on each cord. Strings of pearls, draped perfectly from stem to stem with such weight, they look as if they should break.
And at the center, the artist himself—a small, red spider.






Only one is working this morning—scampering with such speed, round and round. And in the few minutes I watch her, lays down 4 rings of fine thread, each precisely placed from the last. I hope she is just an early riser inspired by the morning sun and is not frantically replacing a web my foot unknowingly destroyed.



What does she hope to catch in this tiny round web, aside from the sun and drops of dew?
There are many other residents of her very small world.

small grasshopper

small praying mantis drinking dew drop

small American Toad


Click on images to enlarge.

Taken home

In the middle of my day at work, I take a walk—a break from the indoor environment that, at some times seems claustrophobic—especially on sunny fall days. It’s not too stimulating—beige concrete bounded by the blacktopped lot and brick-faced building, covered by a metal canopy—but it’s fresh air, nonetheless.
And, sometimes within this sheltered area, there are creatures that seem out of place. Stranded on this man-made island, separated from where they intended to be.

Last week I found a praying mantis. Not another mantis, like the huge Chinese Mantids that descended upon my milkweed patch in August, the imported garden-stalkers from the other side of the world—a very different, smaller one, the North American native, the Carolina Mantid.
Her season is almost ended. Frosty mornings will soon bring our first hard freeze. But until then, she deserves better than days on a barren concrete sidewalk, dodging unseeing feet.

She behaved perfectly in that inverted styrofoam bowl on my desk for the remainder of the afternoon. Aside from the occasional “scritch” of her barbed feet as she walked around inside it, and my peeking through the air holes I’d given her…we kept her visit a secret.

The next morning, at home, with the warm sunshine on fallen leaves against the river rock wall—she seemed at home.

Chinese Mantid on milkweed
August 12, 2007

Chinese Mantid straddling large milkweed leaf
August 12, 2007

Carolina Mantid
only 2 inches in length
November 2, 2007

Green eyes
Raptorial forelegs with sharp spines

Carolina Mantid
November 2, 2007

Her small wings and heavy body do not allow her to fly--but they are beautiful to look at up close--
mottled shades of brown, silver and rose.

Yesterday

So often, it seems, as I grow older, I feel the predictability of the seasons. The child-like wonder is forgotten. The rhythms and rituals have become familiar. Some days I go out, knowing well what I will find there—and am surprised that it is not as I would have expected. As I walk this property, memories of things observed here in years past, are jostled—adjusted by differences in this year’s weather, the progression of the trees, the evolution of the pond…
Nature continues to teach new things. It cannot be predicted. Yesterday was one of those days.


The milkweed patch has been a success this year—better than ever in size and butterfly production. And I visit it every day, sometimes twice to watch the activity it attracts. I know who to expect to find there, and where. It has become as familiar to me as a room in my house. I could walk through it in the dark without tripping.
But yesterday, things were different.

I usually consider myself fortunate to find one or two praying mantids by the end of the summer. I know they lay hundreds of eggs in the foamy masses, but don’t usually encounter too many adults. They’re always so curious to look at, as they turn and look back at me--triangular heads resembling alien life forms. And, I’ve captured them in empty mayonnaise jars, to marvel at for an afternoon. Such a prize to find even one.

In the milkweed patch yesterday, on just 20 plants, I spotted 7 mantids! They were hanging everywhere—upside down from the broad leaves, their brown bodies waiting motionlessly for dinner to walk or flutter by. I was astonished to see so many. Each one of good size, some almost 6 inches long. Spending their day, hunting in the milkweed patch.


I’ve been enjoying some of the essays of Ora Anderson, a self-taught naturalist, journalist, conservationist, artist who lived to the limit of his days, 94 years, on a farm in southeastern Ohio, passing away just last August.
His marvel at the newness of each season through his keen eye, never tiring of observing and learning from immersion in the natural world. How, even after 94 years, "the riches of yesterday are replaced by new treasures today--and tomorrow."

I should have known better than to feel nature can ever be predictable.

Chinese Mantid, Tendora aridifolia