Just to bring closure to yesterday’s blog post, thanks to the interwebs we have our answer on what the evil, immortal, invincible wasp-like-things are. According to the Bug Guy at my wife’s new favorite blog, Whatsthatbug.com, it wasn’t a wasp at all, but rather a red headed ash borer. They’re designed to look like wasps as a defense mechanism and we were told they likely were burrowed into some firewood we brought into the house and emerged recently due to the warmer temperatures inside. Unfortunately, we don’t have a wood-burning fireplace. So this was a new mystery for us… but upon inspection we discovered some tiny holes in a wood perch in our red iguana’s cage.

Mystery solved.

Harmless beetles.

And since our dissection of one of the dead borers revealed it had a stinger, I’m apparently a terrible junior Entomologist. Now if only we knew what the deal was with the dead hornets we’ve been finding…

KevinMLD’s home is the victim to a hostile takeover by a UFO.  Of course, I needed to chime in and try to discover the identity of the enemy.  This is the conversation that ensued:

angelique do they look like this?  http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-jewel-wasp-is-amazing/
kevinmld no
kevinmld I tried to take pictures but they didn’t come out.
angelique are they big or small?
angelique you need to put your camera on the flower mode
kevinmld kar says bee size.
kevinmld i was using my phone
angelique Carpenter bee or Bavarian bee?
kevinmld what the hell is a Bavarian bee?
angelique hahahaha
angelique i have no idea
angelique are they fast or slow?
kevinmld mostly slow.
kevinmld but not that slow.
kevinmld the Orkin guy proposed that maybe it was some sort of wasp baby larvae thing, but he said that basically he had no idea what it was, why it was awake, where it came from, or how to stop them.
angelique interesting.
angelique i thought wasps were fast
kevinmld Since we basically live in a cartoon world, we’ve been putting cups over top of them when we find them. And then we watch the cups move ever so slowly as they fight for their lives. We literally leave them lying around for weeks at a time to the point that the cats slap the cups around.
kevinmld and we put one in the freezer…
kevinmld overnight.
angelique hahaha
kevinmld and it came back to life.
angelique eeew
kevinmld so clearly they’re immortal.
angelique

kevinmld no and what is that?
angelique that’s a digger/plasterer bee
angelique i guess it likes eating plaster the way a capenter bee eats wood
kevinmld we do have plaster all over the place in here.
kevinmld it’s wings are barely formed.
kevinmld and it’s skinnier than that.
kevinmld and it’s legs are almost like cricket legs.
angelique

angelique ?
kevinmld less happy than that with a friggin’ weapon on it’s tail.
angelique stripes?
angelique

kevinmld yes stripes, thats why we think its some sort of bee.
angelique

kevinmld stop! these pics are freaking me out (Karen)
angelique am i getting closer?
kevinmld that thing looks huge
kevinmld its super skinny
angelique i think it is super zoomed in

kevinmld

angelique eeeeew
angelique those legs are super long
angelique
?
angelique i don’t know what’s wrong with me……
kevinmld yeah… weird cricket legs.
kevinmld tiny wings and a nasty tail you can’t see in the picture.
kevinmld and they’re invincible.
kevinmld and immortal.
angelique ok – according to my search for “skinny bug long legs spider/bee”
angelique this is the culprit!

angelique also – immortal
kevinmld it looks just like the bottom one
angelique OR
angelique it is this guy:

angelique as found on the internet:  “Bees will only come back if you thaw them in your mouth. Every few minutes, you will need to sip a bit of honey so they have food when they wake up. Be very careful not to swallow.”
kevinmld i’ll have to try that
angelique i can’t find anything like that bug online.  it must not exist.
kevinmld cause its an evil hybrid mutant invincible immortal hell spawn that will someday be named after us

I’ve never been one for new years resolutions.  Overall, I suck at committing to anything.  Pete, Trouble, and Sammy are the longest I have stuck with anything.  Ever.  Well….I may have had a relationship with coffee longer.  And chocolate even longer than that.  Anyway…This year I decided to return to a blog that I attempted before, and then a second time, and now a third time.  A blog that continually was abandoned.  To make it easy, all I am requiring of myself is to post one picture a day.  Something to remember a little bit about the day.  Something to get me to post.  Luckily, WordPress has made it quite easy.  All I have to do is snap a picture with my phone, and email it to my blog.  Posting shouldn’t take much effort.  So, this is my experiment for the year.  I invited Pete to join me, because I thought it would be a fun place for the odd things we stumble upon.  Like the dead fish he saw on the sidewalk in University City one time.  And what’s more fun – you can rate the photos on the blog.  So check it out: www.angeliquebuckley.com And rate some images.  And visit often.  AND totally give me a hard time if I don’t keep up.  HERE WE GO!!!!!

Have you made any resolutions this year?

My car has been approaching a milestone for the past few weeks and last night we “turned over” the odometer at 100,00 miles.  Of course, my digital odometer has seven digits so I really just added a glowing “1” to the left side, but I found it pretty momentous.

This is the first new car I’ve ever purchased, and I’ve driven nearly every one of those miles.  I don’t know if I’ll ever drive it across the country like I’ve wanted to, but it’s seen no less than 15 U.S. states over the years.  It’s slid across highways during blizzards, leaving me to spend the night is strange cities like Pompton Plains, New Jersey. It’s made appearances in parades.  It’s also been driven into a few times doing varying degrees of damage to both the fenders and myself, but it’s still running strong.  After watching the odometer for weeks, Angie and I took a few photos to celebrate our old friend.

I haven’t been the most frequent poster on MLD lately, but I do want to take some time to wish everyone a Merry Happy from myself and the rest of the MLD writing team  🙂  Enjoy some of my recent Lensbaby Fisheye shenanigans, on what I hope is at least a day you don’t have to work!