IN YOUR FACE!

WHAT WAS IT THAT I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU?

October is passing by too quickly.  Things are wrapping up with flower gardening around here.  At the beginning of October it was all about clearing up the faded and frowzy plants and blooms.  Every day in the garden I was greeted by a different one of these creatures.

As I cleared out the zinnia bed there were five praying mantis.  Some were on the ground and some were on the plants.

One of the days that week, as I sat down on the garden bench to rest for a minute, I noticed this "patriotic" praying mantis perched atop the small flag.  I went into the house and got my camera and the mantis was still there when I came out.  He was just marching around on the flag, occasionally tilting his big space alien-like head as he goggled me taking pictures of him.

The next thing I knew, I was unable to see anything clearly through the camera lens.  That was because my little goggle-eyed friend had leaped up onto the camera lens.  When I took the camera away from my eye to see what was wrong with it, there he was on the lens. He was trying to be in my face. I took him off and put him back to his flag sitting pose.  He finally got tired of me taking pictures of him and flew away. 

ALMOST IN MY FACE.  ON THE LENS WHEN I SNAPPED THE PICTURE.

That evening I got to thinking about all of my triangle-faced bug alien encounters of the week.  I have never seen so many  praying mantis in one summer in my entire life.  I did a bit of reading about the mantis.  The word "mantis" is from Greek for prophet or diviner, according to the dictionary.  From a bit of what I read elsewhere, some believe that they may signify that one should take time to  contemplate choices before moving forward and/or to look for balance in the situation.  On one hand, even though that sounds like good advice at any time, it was something that I needed to pay particular attention to that week, as there were some out of the ordinary things going on with me at that time. On the other hand, maybe there were just a lot of bugs in my yard and the praying mantis were there to eat them.

MAKING CONTACT - MANTIS REACHING OUT TO TOUCH MY FINGER . SHE WAS WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED ON MY RED-HANDLED PRUNING SHEARS.  I WAS HOLDING THE SHEARS IN ONE HAND AND THE CAMERA IN THE OTHER TO TAKE THE PICTURE.

I think I would rather they were praying mantis (prophets).  Much more fun and interesting than just big ol' bug-eating bugs.