I should write something of more substance. Here it is.
I miss vinegaroons. Mastigoproctus giganteus, the giant vinegaroon, native to these parts.
They live in my yard, of course. Since I water and don't collect any more, I know they are there. They are synanthropic. That means they do better around humans, when we don't poison them because we are afraid of them.
They are scary looking. They have no venom. All they can do is pinch you a little.
(me and a vinegaroon I fished out of my yard)
They don't breed easily in captivity. It takes some doing. The mating here happens around July; they come out and engage in a pas de deux; they dance around and there is something that happens like how scorpions do it; spermatophores being extruded and females going over and picking up the stuff to fertilize her eggs.
They are great for science classrooms for kids, because they are just so harmless. Even the acetic acid solution they excrete when disturbed, really isn't anything to worry about.
I miss them. But I don't want to keep them in cages anymore. I could find them right on my place here. I know what the holes look like. I know how to flood them out.
But then, what would I do with them? They are happy living in my yard, digging around, pursuing beetle grubs and cockroaches and even lying in wait to attack the occasional large colorful grasshopper (I've seen the remains!)
I never see them anymore, but I'm sure they are still here. I see the holes, and I know just what their holes look like; oval like lenses.
They have no need to come out and hunt in the daylight, because I keep this little habitat for them here, like I try to do for the horned lizards. I spare them that. They are nocturnal.
It's okay if I don't see them. It's magnificent when I do. It's a gift.
I haven't seen the horned lizards in the last year. There was a time when I found babies here. Babies! That was incredible. A little over tablespoon sized. I was, like, oh my Dog; I did something right, and all via accident, and "negligence."
At that time, I wasn't living here, and the place was seriously overgrown. I got busted by the city for weeds last winter, but that was nothing in comparison. The horned lizards love the dry overgrown grass habitat. They hang under my rotting prickly pear, too.
I like weeds. I like habitat.
When I found a little horned lizard, half-dollar sized, here, that time; I knew that I was capable of changing reality.
That kind of thing doesn't happen when you mow everything unto submission, and it doesn't happen when you douse everything with chemicals unto death.
I also kept up with the harvester ants. I still have a big colony out on the easement by the street. Some kids came by the other day and were messing with the ants. I watched. The tools they were using looked to be innocuous. Maybe they were nascent scientists. I worried that they were trying to blow up my ants. I almost went out and confronted the kids; but then I backed off..they are kids, let them be. Give them peace, long as they don't appear to be doing anything terrible. I remember being a kid. To put it mildly.
Harvester ants are the primary food of our local horned lizards. They have horrible stings, but they are overall very docile ants. They are like hornets on Valium.
I don't know what those kids were up to with messing with my ants out on the easement. But at times, I've killed those ants, with corporate Amdro. It's hard when they decide to move into my vegetable gardens.
Or, maybe it isn't. I know a caver who told me once that he's scaled mountain faces and found tons of those puppies. He just works past them. He told me that it would be silly to try to backtrack so heavily.
I, myself, have found them running across my bare feet while gardening, absent-mindedly.
When I've gotten stung, it's been because I did not realize they were there.
If they were our size, and we their size, perhaps we would be the stung?