Little critters

Maramataka

Māuri or Ōmutu

A rest day, finish any of those last straggling tasks, take it easy. A time for reflecting upon our last moon cycle, the highs and the lows; look into your whakapapa, reconnect with yourself - sometimes more can be seen in these dark nights of our new moon.

"Me whai whakaaro" (Be Mindful)

New Course: Plant Health

Module 1: Identifying pests (the good, the bad and the ugly)

This is a fascinating new aspect to my horticulture learning journey.

I am a fan of bugs - from afar, and am an active user of bug ID pages on offer here in Aotearoa.

Bugs can be a nuisance but they are also hugely important to the function of our world.

In nature we need these little guys for a huge range of mahi:

• Pollinators - These are our bees, beetles, butterflies even ants and flies. Without these hard workers our plants would suffer and would need to rely on humans to assist in pollination if they were to have a chance of survival.
• Undertakers - These are the bugs that get down and dirty, the cockroaches, flies, beetles and I have recently discovered butterflies... Without this team assisting in the decomposition of organic matter what would our outside view look like? It would be stinky and foul!!
• Exterminators - The defence soldiers of the insect world help keep invasive pests down, these are our praying mantises, lady birds. I had an invasion of aphids on a rose bush up north; I found a beautiful praying mantis, planted her on the roses and the aphids were gone within days.
• They are food for our bigger critters - birds, reptiles and amphibians will get a good feed from little bugs. Even us as humans seem to be swaying towards more bugs in our diets.

Historically (and presently) these little critters have been helping humans:

• In medicine. Leeches (invertebrate animal so not a bug) has been used for centuries in bloodletting, Flies and I guess maggots have been used to keep wounds clean, Bee pollen and propolis is hugely beneficial for winter ills and chills.
• We use their by-products - Honey, beeswax, silk, dyes, cotton is a by product from the help of our pollinators.

Bugs great and small all have a role to play in our world, what would our days look like without the buzz of busy bees, the flutter-bys of butterflies or the busy life of little worker ants doing their job  for their colony and entertaining W.

W and I, as you know, took part in wrangling monarchs last Summer and we are going to be attempting this again this season, however this time we are starting from seed.

This activity had high highs and low lows resulting in one successful monarch butterfly before our relocation down south (thanks to the COVID rāhui). With following this lifecycle we also learned about the ladybird and their helpful nymphs and of course the praying mantis. We discovered the help we could access from the ladybirds and praying mantises in keeping the monarch caterpillars somewhat safe, kept their numbers at a sustainable level and also kept the swan plant free of pests such as the aphid.

Knowing this lifecycle (that I have now come to learn as a complete metamorphosis) proves to be handy in identifying pests and noticing timing of the damage compared to the stage of their life.

Our beautiful monarch W named Boy-He

This is going to be an interesting module and I think there will be plenty of options for W to get involved with the learning with me.

Daily Mindfulness...

Grateful for:

1. Fresh running water
2. Blue skies
3. pollinating critters

Things that happened that were awesome today:

1. Reached 200 straight days with Duolingo...
2. W nonsense sung along to some Hamilton jams
3. Officially passed TWoA He Tikanga Whakaaro (my certificate finally arrived today)

Things I needed to do to make the day great:

1. Attempted the 'miracle morning', woke up earlier but lay in bed...
2. Had a hot coffee undisturbed
3. Had an undisturbed shower

It's the small wins that will build up to the big wins...