Cud v. Kudzu

Our city's hired goats to take out invasive kudzu. Cheaper & better than people:

At $375 a day, the cost to rent a herd of goats is comparable to hiring a contractor. But employing farm animals avoids compacting the soil with heavy equipment or polluting the nearby northwest branch of the Anacostia with an herbicide.
Better yet, goats work day and night, rain or shine. They get the job done and they don't talk baaaaack -- for the most part.

I wonder: would they clear out the brush in my back yard?

Syria, Daleks & Holy Cookies

--- 1 ---

Well that was fun! We all learned a lot and it was great seeing our friends again. Is it summer vacation yet?

--- 2 ---

I'm with Albert Brooks on the Syrian question:

I don't know the right decision on Syria, but basically telling them Saturday between 3 and 4 seems stupid.
— Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) August 29, 2013

Obama says it'll just be limited, a "shot across the bow." So he's going to try to miss?

--- 3 ---

Heheheheheh. Bottum. That is all I really have to say about that (other than 10,000 words to not make one's position clear is itself a crime against nature -- no wonder he's having difficulty embracing the natural law). 

Oh, ok, two quick things. Now that Bottum's gone on record that he accepts magisterial teaching and didn't intend to suggest otherwise, I'd like to point out that what's really at issue is the "weakness" of natural law arguments in the public square and that Bottum isn't the first past or present First Thing-er to wrestle with the question -- there's a whole symposium on the future of First Things in the current issue. Here's George Weigel uncharacteristically hand-wringing for example. He hasn't lost his faith (neither has Jody Bottum), but he admits he doesn't know what to do next.  More on this another time -- bluntly, I am going to try to sell an essay on this topic, so $$ for the family first, self-indulgent blogging later. 

Bottum's piece was dis-spiriting in one way (if you have kids, you think about them when people frame arguments), but the blogospheric reaction to it was equally so (though I did like this one -- tough and funny --so I am not being consistent). Is it not safe to pose a question to a Catholic anymore? If the Left makes an argument ad hitleram about everything, must the Catholic Right make an argument ad heresiam about everything? Can't a guy admit he's struggling with an issue and meet with an argument to persuade him instead of a lot of angry denunciations of his character? 

I find that so dreadfully tedious, and it's everywhere. Raise a question, and so many Catholics respond with moral indignation and their favorite magisterial proof-text. Yes, I get it, I know what Church teaching is and that I'm bound by it. Now could you please answer my question because I am wrestling to understand it or wrestling to find a way to articulate it to my atheist neighbor? All you are saying, effectively, is Shut Up. 

Update: Here's a nice post, the best that can be said in Bottum's defense while still critical -- and it takes him seriously instead of just flying off the handle. 

--- 4 ---

Toll House cookies? Yuck! You may find this to be heresy, but some years ago we were converted to Holy Cookie-ism. Tonight we were out of oatmeal so Middle Weed made Toll House. Uck. Too sickly sweet, couldn't stand them. Even if you are uninterested in cookies, you must go read about the Holy Cookie, which is as much about the antics of naughty boys as anything else. 

--- 5 ---

We discovered Dr. Who this summer. Therefore we now say everything in Dalek voices. Currently Girl Weed is reciting the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy from Macbeth as a dalek. 

--- 6 ---
It was murder. 

While out walking the dog Wednesday I came across this beautiful blue dragonfly spread-eagled and being murdered by a cicada hawk (remember them?). I caught the wasp in the act and it was ashamed and tried to drive me off, which is why I didn't get a picture of her stabbing her hapless victim. But apparently I shamed her enough not to take the carcass to her lair, because it was still here today -- and I think the same bug flying around patrolling the area.

--- 7 ---
Nope, I only have six takes. Have a great weekend!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Hyattsville Wild #7 (I Think)

See, the hawks aren't all gone from Washington! I think this is a broad-winged hawk, and it settled into a tree right above me while the hound & I were out walking.

Hyattsville Wild, Spring Edition

Next in an occasional series.
Curtsy to my neighbor, who sent me these results from a recent local fishing trip.

Rainbow trout

"[his daughter] caught the rainbow trout on a tiny spinner in the NW Branch [of the Anacostia] this evening, while the boys and I were trying to grab river herring with our hands as they made their way up the fish ladder at Rhode Island Ave."

Suitable for snacking

Leopard frog

This fine fellow was discovered in the bottom slope of my neighbor's yard. He (neighbor, not frog) describes it as a "group-living situation with three other frogs from the little pool across the street."

Hyattsville Wild, Winter Edition

Next in an occasional series

 snow run-off

Canada geese on the Anacostia

cardinal

Hyattsville Wild!

Next in an occasional series.

Fledgling Monarch in a pear tree.

I was in my neighbor's yard when I saw what had just hatched from one of these...

make its maiden voyage, alighting in the tree you see above. Our neighbors discovered the chrysalises under some hosta plants and transplanted them for observation.

Here's another species, "caught" on the Northwest Branch trail near home.

Ain't they purty? Thanks to C. for sending them along.

Hyattsville Wild

Next in an occasional series.

Lovely downtown Hyattsville

Where the riverbanks are flecked with gold

Hyattsville Wild Again

Next in an occasional series.

"Winterizing" the garden and cutting down a bunch o' wild trees that were going to obscure the view of our Christmas tree from the bay window, we encountered one of these (right), which should actually be called a boxing mantis, because it alighted on the front gate, fixed its gaze on Eldest Weed, followed him with its beady little eyes as EW walked back and forth inspecting him, and reached out its little forelegs in boxing gestures just as pictured here. I could almost hear his nasally little voice threatening

Bring it, Punk.

Not prayerful in the slightest.

Further excitement provided by a baby pair of these, lurking under the abandoned-months-ago sandbox when we overturned it:

They're called, unsurprisingly, ring-necked snakes, and they're quite harmless. Ours were hardly bigger than your larger worm. They were quite put out by the dumping, however. Sat up, stuck their wee tongues at us, and then made a run for it.

Hyattsville Wild

Yesterday, while sitting on my front porch in my little town just minutes from the border with DC, I saw one of these --the biggest dang wasp I've ever seen-- a full 2 inches long and redder than this specimen is--




hunt, wrestle and kill one of these --a common green cicada.
I actually heard it --a loud rustling noise with repeated strikes against the garbage can-- before I saw it.





Once the cicada was stunned, the wasp (only the females hunt or have stingers I learned) had to make several efforts to get a good grip. . .





before she could fly off with it to her lair to feed the little wasp grubs. Creepy and beautiful, it was a moment of gross grace. What is it the theologian said about the beautiful being a dimension of the terrible?

Pictures, and all you could wish to know about the cicada-killer wasp, here.