As I watched a stick bug slowly wander up my sleeping bag to perch on my face, I realized that my attitude about bugs, which has always been pretty lax, has certainly gotten even more chill. I'm sure you want to hear about all of our bug adventures so I'll give you some snippets.
* While walking in the early morning hours, my headlamp reflects the individual drops of dew on the grass and dead leaves. It is really beautiful. However, one morning a drop of dew, seemingly, ran across my path. This surprised me and resulted in further examination. As I bent over to find this running drop of dew, I was surprised to see that it was actually a spider. My headlamp was reflecting in it's many eyes. This, admittedly surprised me so I began to look more closely at all the dew drops. Every one I looked at was a spider. Incredible! And crazy-there were SO MANY. I mean, I know that there's bugs everywhere, but to all of a sudden be able to see some was a remarkable thing. (and mildly disconcerting)
*When the weather gets hot, or even mildly warm, the bugs begin to swarm our heads. It's unbelievably annoying and actually quite perilous as it takes your attention away from the rocks at your feet. I particularly hate the No-seeums that fly at your eyes in an effort to drink the vitreous fluid. I have two strategies, one is to walk with my eyes as closed as possible in an effort to create a screen with my eyelashes. The other is to just slap my face with my entire hand in an effort to just smash the bug against my face and kill it. I like to think that the bug smear across my cheeks is like war paint and it frightens the other bugs away.
*On a particularly hot day we stopped to get some water and the bugs were really harassing Jamie. All of a sudden he yells out and tells me that a bug flew into his ear. I searched as much as a I could but I couldn't see anything and I didn't want stick a twig into his ear. In truth, I thought he was exaggerating. But I was so wrong. About 3 minutes later, he felt a tiny sting and the bug FLEW OUT OF HIS EAR and then his ear started bleeding. The damn bug bit him IN the ear. Incredible.
*We stopped to take a lunch break and I decided to take my shoes off and nap on my back in the sun. When I woke up, I saw a millipede also decided to nap in the sun. It was stretched out over all 5 of my toes and getting a tan.
*Occasionally we come across crazy looking caterpillars. We should do some research and find out what they are, but we really like the ones that remind us of Pokemon. They're brightly colored and have patterns that make is look it has a face on it's back.
*Once we saw a little dung beetle rolling it's ball across the path. But when we came upon it, we startled it and it curled it's body around it's treasure. It reminded me of a toddler trying to hide itself and a big yoga ball by just hugging it putting it's head down.
*We imagine dead animals are a pretty common thing in the woods but we don't often come across them. However, there was half a dead chipmunk in the trail the other day and there were bugs we had never seen before clearing it away. They were orange and black beetle looking things, about an inch long with pointed bodies. They were crawling all over it, which was fine, but a whole bunch of them had wormed up under the skin and it was making the body look like it was undulating. Gross.
* Butterflies are everywhere and beautiful.
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