Puzzling

I find myself confused by the information I read about insects sometimes. Take, for instance, today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I looked this up in all of my insect books, and I think it is an eastern pondhawk dragonfly. It is either a young male or a female, based on the color. However, the confusing thing is that one of the books says that these hunt at the edges of ponds. There is no pond in my backyard. There isn't even a puddle. So what is it doing there?

 This is a new species for the backyard.

Other Bugs:

 Hoverfly living up to its name

 Beetle

 Is is nearly impossible to get a good picture of a tumbling flower beetle, and I have no idea why.

 Sweat bee

 I have been seeing these mealy bug destroyer larvae around the backyard, and I read something interesting about these, too. They are imported (from Australia, I think) for agricultural purposes, to eat pests, and the thing I read said that they can't handle the climate in the northeastern part of the US (which is where I live), because the winters are too cold (which makes sense if this is an insect from Australia), so any that you see here are escapes from greenhouses. I wonder where these came from, then?

 An exceptionally creepy sawfly larva.

 I assume this is a white marked tussock moth caterpillar, but I have never seen one with that coloration before. Usually the tufts on the back are white.

The milkweed are beginning to bloom, and they are very popular with a lot of insects, but so far I have only seen this one honey bee on them:

 Isn't she beautiful?

 Hopper nymph

 Sharpshooter

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I happened to spot this today, which is not an unusual site; there are spider webs all over the backyard, and many of them have insects caught in them. For some reason, though, I felt compelled to look at what was caught there...

 ... and found this. What is interesting is that yesterday I took pictures of a bee like this, perhaps this very one resting on this flower. And here it is caught in a spider thread attached to the flower. So, what happened here?

 This is what I found underneath the flower petals.

This is not in any of my insect guides. I really need a spider guide. There are a lot of these in the backyard this year, and I think this may be the first year I have seen them, but I am not positive. I have certainly seen some that are at least similar.

Harvestman (not a spider).