beetlejuice on my face

and continuing on in the "trapped" series. on this particular shot you'll see proton howling in anger as i snap his poor mug. i also received a wonderful treat in the mail from dr. j.p.: a book entitled The Care and Handling of Dogs, copyrighted 1928. i'm going to be adding little nuggets from this book because it's teeming with amazing descriptions of dogs and the like. today's is a couple of sentences from the chapter "The Selection of a Dog" and is in regards to the Mexican jumping bean of the dog world, the chihuahua.

These wee mites are extremely rare in this country owing to the decidedly delicate natures and the great amount of precaution and care necessary to breed them. They are over-sensitive to cold and one good draught may be the finish of these tiny morsels of dog flesh. (p.13)

.... tiny morsels of dog flesh. amazing.

and on to the japanese beetles. i don't like them. and it's not necessarily because they are decimating my raspberry bushes. as i'm picking berries i can hear these dull thuds, and it's the beetles falling off of whatever leaf they were one and landing on the one just below it... and then the one below that one... and so on. what kind of bug falls off leaves? aren't bugs sort of trained to do that in the first place? isn't there some sort of selection for those individual critters that manage to STAY ON? in addition, any attempt at in-air maneuvering is something akin to drunk kamikazes. if not free-falling, they're freaking out at the sight of my little white hand a'coming to pick berries and give their best attempt at flying. these guys don't fly. they jump as hard as they can and try to flap whatever wings they have and end up running into me, my hand, my hair, the nearest other japanese beetle, a raspberry, anything. they're not smart and it's like trying to defend yourself against a drunk, heavy-set college boy at a german beer house. but i may be figured out why their behavior is what it is. upon closer examination of the photo i snapped earlier i found some conspicuous items placed around the copulating critters. i don't know how i didn't see them earlier. take a look. those are empty cups i see. explains a lot.