A Few Clowns Short of a Circus

We call her "Roxie" but her show name is "Dumber Than Rocks". Before you think I'm cruel beyond measure, I love her to death, but you have to wonder about a horse that'll jump up on your back deck and can't find a way to get back down. She's finally learning to get off, but before she did, I'd sometimes come home to find her standing there, wondering how to get down.

It is in her nature to be sweet and loving to humans, but when it comes to intelligence, she's a few fries short of a happy meal. Still, I've never met a horse with a more loving and bright nature. She is perpetually happy and runs to see anyone who might be interested in scratching her or playing.

Which is why when I got home on Tuesday and saw her laying down in the yard I was concerned. Though sitting up, her breathing was shallow and rapid, and her temperature was up to 104.5 deg F, high for a horse. Lauren, who could be an awesome vet, went down to the house and checked our book, How to Be Your Own Veterinarian (Sometimes): A Do-It-Yourself Guide for the Horseman and the Internet. She returned with a theory that Roxie's illness was related to seeing her eating a branch with leaves the day before.

Ah, see the cicadas had caused "flagging" in the trees, the branches dropped down, blew five feet to the dry paddock where Roxie should have been eating her hay, but instead ate the leaves. Black walnut leaves. Which are toxic to horses, causing respiratory distress and eventually, founder if left untreated. These trees had never before posed a threat to our horses, located well outside of the paddock and pasture, and normally, keeping all their leaves on the tree.

Chiron, Roxie's brother and a good deal smarter but cantankerous, did not eat those leaves. He was fine. So what to do about Rox? A small dose of Bute, a pain killer, relieved her, and she remained fine all night. By yesterday, she was back to her happy-go-lucky style. The farrier came to trim her feet and said she appeared normal, except for her always twisted back hoof, common to mini's. Of course, she wanted that we would hold her while her feet were done instead of having to try to do the splits for the farrier who can barely get down low enough to trim her.

Who knew that cicadas could be so dangerous?

Science Friday - Flagging

Recently, we noticed a number of dead branches in what are otherwise healthy trees in our yard, particularly the weeping willows. We correctly suspected cicada damage. The female uses her oviposter like a tiny saw, making two parallel lines that split the twig and there she deposits her eggs. This causes the twig to die and hang down, which is why it is referred to as "flagging".


The above photo shows the slits in the twig. Using a compound microscope, we were able to view the little rice-like eggs that were in the holes. We put the branch back outside so that after the eggs hatch, the nymphs can burrow down into the soil and grow for the next seventeen years. By the next time we see them, William will be twenty three years old and will, like the cicada nymphs, also have transformed into a different creature altogether.

Science Friday

As a homeschooler, I am often asked about what curricula I use. For example, how do I teach science? For this subject, I am amazed that anyone can think that science can be found in a book exclusively, particularly a textbook. We use "real" books from the library and things we find in our environment mostly. I decided to make Science Friday a regular feature of my blog, inspired by one of my favorite radio shows Talk of the Nation: Science Friday and post something we've studied that week. This week: Cicadas.

Brood XIV of the seventeen year cicada is here, and while feeding chickens, William discovered them crawling out of a stump of a tree.

Once we started looking, we found they were everywhere.

Here is one shedding its brown nymph shell to become
an adult cidada with wings.

As it emerges, the cidada is white at first, with very red eyes.

William would like to comment that with the black spots, it looks very much like General Grievious (Grievous, actually but he insists it is Grievious) of Star Wars.

We found them in various stages of emergence. Here Daisy is investigating a nymph that has just come up out of the ground and is rock wall climbing to find a good place to begin its transformation. Next to it, is one that has begun splitting it's shell.

When they first come out, they are very white. An unnamed teen in our house said they were gross and they looked naked.

Having successfully gotten out of its shell, the cicada now sits and dries its wings. I wonder what process occurs to change it from the white cicada above, to the finished black cicada below.

This cicada we took back to the house to watch it "hatch". It is a very slow process. The cicadas seem to be very vunerable at this stage, as they can't really move once they start the final process. We found that the chickens loved eating them. In fact, did you know that cicadas are eaten by humans? In case you are inspired to cook up a batch, I found many recipes on the web. I can just see it now. Mom, what's for dinner? Cicada tacos. Right. Perhaps if I were starving and it was like, oh, 1100 A.D. and Kroger wasn't down the road with perfectly good chicken breasts all cleaned and ready to cook.

From the recipe: "Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: "Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: wings, legs and head. These parts don’t contain much of the meat either but may be very sharp, so its best to get rid of them. Right. Now, I don't eat things I have to coax out, like oysters, crab legs, etc. Call me spoiled, but I just don't visualize myself pulling the wings off of live insects and popping them in the oven on a cookie sheet for a tasty treat or frying them up in a pan. Gag. I did find a recipe for chocolate covered cicadas, which maybe would be a possibility. Nah, why spoil a good thing?

Back to science lessons, we downloaded some good diagrams and information from EnchantedLearning.com and spent the day hearing from William, "MOM. COME LOOK!" He determined that he could not climb his favorite tree without squishing cicadas, or really even walk in the grass. The most amazing thing to think about for me is that this variety of cicada laid the eggs for this brood before my kids were born, before we moved here, and when I was newly married. All done seventeen years ago on days when I was busy in my life, unknowing that 20 miles from where I lived, insects were busy preparing a science lesson for me and a little boy not yet born.

Wordless Wednesday - Cicada Casings