How is it the first of August already? For folks living in the northern hemisphere, most of us are experiencing the hottest outdoor temperatures of the year.
With hot temps, guess who comes to visit? Bugs! Whether or not you are a fan of insects, this is an opportunity to look closely in your gardens (or the floors of your homes?) and search for what is bugging you.
If all insects disappeared, all life on earth would perish. If all humans disappeared, all life on earth would flourish.
Jonas Salk
Truth be told, I rather like most insects. I find many of them beneficial to gardens and even places indoors. Spiders are not insects but rather arachnids with eight legs. Insects have six legs. If I find a hapless spider fumbling to climb out of the bathtub, I’m known to get a tissue and help it out…then throw it outside. I do the same for moths. Perhaps I sound like a misguided Mother Nature, but I’ve seen too many 80s horror films in which the bugs strike back against the mean humans by swarming and devouring or growing to giant sizes and biting off heads. Insect karma…sounds exciting, right? No?
The bugs I dislike are ants, cockroaches, ticks, and flies. Not a fan of black widow spiders either.
Speaking of exciting, I’m responding to Marsha’s Writers Quotes Wednesday Writer’s Challenge (WQWWC) prompt—exciting!
Dragonflies and Praying Mantis
I do get excited when I see dragonflies. My all-time favorite is this one of a dragonfly molting out of its exoskeleton.
I’ve come to understand that the most exciting thing about life is change.
Mark Inglis
I found this one a few days ago. When it didn’t fly away from the tomato plant upon my intrusion, I nudged it and it was dead. Forever immortalized in photos.
Praying mantis are pretty cool critters, too.
This one enjoyed our windsurf boards 
Resident mantis with 5 legs
This is a California Root Borer, a type of “longhorn beetle,” I found on my doorstep. I don’t know what it’s doing in Washington, but it’s about 2 inches long. They fly at night and only live for two short weeks.
What’s Bugging Me About Our Property
Delay after delay, that’s what.
Last week the cement floor was finished and the gravel driveway was completed. There is a delay with the shop doors. Building slow-downs have been a major problem in the construction industry, because:
- 1. Many workers are staying unemployed because they get better pay than working a real job, and
- 2. Because there are fewer workers, deliveries are delayed and materials are not available.
We are so close to the finish line and plan to close the loan this month!
Life needs to be like a roller-coaster ride with ups and downs. Otherwise, it’s not exciting.
N. T. Rama Rao, Jr.
This is one roller coaster ride I could do without–I have enough excitement in my life.
OK, back to the bugs…
Bee-utiful!
Enjoy my gallery of bees on various flowers. Without bees as pollinators, we would starve.
Don’t get too close! 
Macro Flower and Bee 
Flowers are shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. All photos in this post are shared for John’s CellPick Sunday.
Be sure to checkout my Sunday Stills page for August themes. Please note, I am planning a three-week end-of-summer break between August 22-Sept 5.
Geometric Bloggers Links
Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are last week’s links from bloggers who shared their favorite geometric photos.
- Always Write
- Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
- Cee’s Photo Challenges
- Deb’s World
- Denyse Whelan Blogs
- Easin’ Along Image shared in comments
- Equipoise Life
- Graham’s Island
- Geriatrix Fotogallery
- Hugh’s Views and News Image in Comments
- Jacquie Biggar Author
- Kamerapromenader
- Life Lessons
- Light Write Life
- Musin’ with Susan
- My Forever Blog
- Natalie the Explorer
- One Million Photographs
- Philosophy Through Photography
- Retirement Reflections Image shared on Instagram
- Robert’s Snap Spot
- Travel With Me
- Whippet Wisdom
- Woolly Muses
- Working on Exploring for Evergreen
Next week’s theme will be images related to your favorite song lyrics. If this is unclear, it might be best to think of your favorite song(s) and highlight some lyrics with your photos. Here is an example from Marsha and my example from 2017: My Favorite Things. Also, to avoid copyright infringements of published lyrics, only post a few lines rather than the entire song. If you write poetry or your own songs, you can certainly use your work for this theme!
Thank you for your continuing support of Sunday Stills! I appreciate your beautiful creative photography, poetry, stories, and fun conversations! Have a great week!
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