This afternoon, as I was wandering around trying to get my head screwed on straight, the Mr suggested that I should go out and inspect the Adirondack chairs that we made from our old fence at the Original Park. We hadn't been using them a whole lot lately, but someone has. I worried that I'd get out there and find my cushions had been shredded. Thankfully, they were still intact, but someone very small (and most likely the owner(s) of bushy tail(s)) sat on our breakfast patio and feasted on flower heads. I think it was mostly sunflowers, but maybe there was something else mixed in. Dahlias, maybe. Every time I think how nice it would be to eradicate all of the sunflowers growing like weeds and shading parts of my garden I'd rather were clear for vegetables, I have to stop and remind myself how many other creatures are depending on those things for food. The squirrels eat the heads. The hornets eat the aphids that live on them, and on other plants. (I'm pretty sure they help lead the hornets to the other stuff covered in aphids, to clear them out.) I haven't seen my flock of chickadees in a while, since Mr S-P cut out half of their spirea bush. I wonder how much they were depending on those things for food and shade over the summer.
The new lizard doesn't seem super comfortable in the Cricketarium yet. He spends almost all of his time in the same spot, hiding from his new, large digs. I have two theories about what's happening with him. I think one thing is that he actually liked the really mean Bahamanian anole who lived with him at PetSmart, and he kind of misses that guy. The other possibility is that he's somewhat stressed by a different detail about his new home: the color. My walls are painted a color with a name like "deep mushroom." Ever since I pulled Agnes into my room, so that I wouldn't forget to water her every day while I was living alone last year, she has stayed brown. It's not her natural coloring. They're called green anoles for a reason. It never occurred to me until this week, maybe the change was a direct result of the amount of brown surrounding her all day every day. I put a philodendron in the tank last year, but it hasn't grown as full as I had hoped. It isn't enough green for her, and it doesn't seem to be enough for Lizard B either. I borrowed a patterned scarf from my daughter this evening, one that will give a vague impression of a leafy green hedge for both lizards. Agnes is still hiding in the green lizard ladder, but I think there are other reasons she is there. Lizard B is still in his spot on the stick, but he's not quite as brown. I will give this experiment a couple of days, to see whether he chills out and lets himself turn green for longer periods. I still haven't even seen him jump down to eat, so I have to hope that he's okay and not freaked out by the presence of the Cricket Mafia that has taken over the dried out moss on the bottom of the tank. If it works, I will find some sort of tank wrap that looks even more like leafy greens. I want Lizard B to feel at home.
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