Wind, Wasps, Ants, and Wood

 Today was an odd, mentally chaotic, physically unwell kind of day.  My legs were very shaky and it was difficult to stand up or walk.














M. went into town early to get food, since the weather is predicted to change this afternoon and tonight, with possible rain and thunderstorms.  When it rains hard, the road becomes slick and impassible.









 
 It was sunny and calm this morning, but the winds picked up early this afternoon and there were some enormous gusts.  I just now got back from a very slow walk, and while I was out I saw the darker grey clouds beginning to roll in.

The winds are really roaring now and there are thick clouds of dust swirling like snow squalls around the yard and over the slopes. The dog is scared and has crawled under my chair to hide.  

 

Observations from my wanderings today

 I've noticed that a certain area on our driveway seems to lots of velvet ant wasps, and in recent days more and more of them have been appearing there.  This afternoon, on the walk out, M. and I saw something like six of them scurrying around.  We've been wondering if there's a nest in the area and hoping we could locate it so that we could check it out.  Today we saw that there was a hole that one of them was digging into head-first and we thought at first that it might be the entrance to their nest.  But then we saw that several others were engaged in the same behavior, digging their own little holes.
On the way back on my walk, during which the skies had darkened considerably, I looked for them again but at first couldn't find a single one.  Then I looked more closely and saw some orange butts poking out of the ground.










All of the wasps had dug themselves into holes, or were in the process of digging holes.  I stayed for a few minutes to watch and saw that some of them weren't satisfied with the holes they had, they moved to fresh areas and began to dig again.

Earlier today I noticed that an ant hill off of our driveway that I've been keeping an eye on, is once again active.  The ants were busy carrying out and hauling away pieces of dirt and sand.  I'd been wondering if they'd relocated or died; most of the other ant hills around here have been active for at least a week already.  I noticed that they have two entries/exits in close proximity to one another.  I wonder what happens when it rains, how the ants keep from drowning.  I did get bitten at the end of last summer by one of this kind of ants in our garden--it was the worst ant bite I've ever had.  It crawled on my foot and only bit me when it got caught between my sandal strap and my foot.  It taught me not to go barefoot or wear sandals in the garden here.

On my afternoon walk, I focused on the grain of the wood from decaying sagebrush.  I'm fascinated by the different patterns that the wood twists into as it dehydrates and begins to decompose.

Beautiful.