Sitting here listening to the cicadas‘ serenade, I am reminded that one of the pleasures of having relocated to Texas is the variety of new flora, fauna and experiences I get to enjoy. I’ve long been an admirer of insects, both factual and fictional, for their wild-yet-practical construction, exquisite colors and textures, remarkable sounds and skills and most especially, for their very different-ness from us two-legs.

The series below was reverse-painted on some old windows when I was in one of my phases of such fascination.

L-R: Balancing Act; Hello, Earthlings!; Let Us Prey

As we’re fortunate to have bought a house that backs on a modest greenbelt ‘ravine’ that can’t be built, I’m hopeful I’ll continue to meet new local denizens on a regular basis. So far, there have been visitations from numerous small lizards and frogs and snakes, a ‘writin’ spider’, a plethora of insects–many on a larger scale than I’ve previously known–a possum or two, raccoons that (to date) have only shown their glowing eyes as we pull into the driveway. There are birds galore, from hummingbirds to grackles, mockingbirds and killdeers and scissor-tailed flycatchers and cardinals and waxwings and-and-and . . . . The wild rabbits have made occasional appearances. Some neighbor is reputed to have been nervous about her kitty-cat and ‘turned in’ the otherwise beloved local foxes to the animal-control police, so we’ve little hope of ever enjoying them. I’ve heard tales of coyotes and wild turkeys and deer and other assorted visitors in nearby neighborhoods, but don’t know if or when they’ll visit the ravine or our yard.

The visitor I’d most like to see is one I’ve only yet heard and, once in the snow, seen footprints bearing witness to on our property: a bobcat. I’ve only seen armadillos yet in their, um, postmortem state alongside the roads, so maybe I’m a bit behindhand in converting to true Texanism, but hey, I’m working on it.