Brr

I read an article in the newspaper this morning about cryotherapy, which is a treatment involving standing in a tube with your head sticking out the top while air at a temperature of MINUS 215ºF is blasted at you for three minutes. The article was mostly about the fact that there is no scientific evidence that this helps with any ailment, but as I was reading it, I was thinking that I would like to try this just because I want to know how that feels.  A little while later I went outside to do my bug walk. I had waited until the temperature finally rose to 60ºF (at around 2:00 in the afternoon) because I didn't think there would be any bugs around if I went out when it was still in the 50s. And the first thing I thought when I walked out the door was, "Ugh. It's too cold. I don't want to be out here."

I was about halfway through my uncomfortably cold bug walk before I remembered what I had been thinking while reading about cryotherapy, and then I had to laugh at myself for the completely outrageous idea that I could handle -215ºF when I can't handle 60ºF.

Give me a week or so of this, and I will adjust, though.

I hope.

There weren't many bugs outside even at 60ºF. I don't blame them. It was definitely one of those days where it felt colder than the temperature, and the temperature had even dropped back into the 50s by the time I finished my walk. I don't think it was in the 60s for more than a few minutes.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Cricket. More than usually cooperative, no doubt because it was cold.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 

 Sawfly? Or other wasp? I don't know.

 Being cold made this cranefly more cooperative.

 It did not make this one more cooperative.

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar

 Caterpillar close-up

 I present this as a picture I wish I had gotten.

 Winter firefly

 Fly

 Uncooperative wasp. There were two of these, and a tiny caterpillar, on this plant. I was interrupted in my attempts to photograph them, and then they were all gone (well, the caterpillar was probably still there, but it was so small, I could not find it again). This is the best picture I got - the wasps were fast, and the wind was fierce.

 Cocoon inside the door of the garden shed.

 

  The other day there was one mushroom in the woods. Today there was an almost-complete fairy circle of them, about 6 feet across. I know they are kind of hard to see in the picture, but there were a lot of them, making roughly a circle.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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This spider lives in the garden shed. When we go out in the evening and come back after dark, it is often visible on the front of the shed when the car's headlights hit it, but during the day it hides inside.