Monday Photo Shoot: Things I Have Others Probably Don't

Your Monday Shoot: Things You Have Other People Probably Don't
"Got something weird around the house that you figure is unique to your personal environment? Perfect. Get the camera:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a snap of something in the house you're pretty sure other people aren't likely to have in their house. Pets and people are not included (we're pretty sure your pets and kids aren't in most other people's houses). For this photo shoot we're looking at things -- stange objects, curios, odd keepsakes and just generally weird stuff. "

                             From John Scalzi's Monday Morning Photo shoot.

 

I had to look around to find something weird, something I knew that no one would have in their own home. It's pretty unique to my environment. I didn’t think of it right away until my eyes fell upon it because I generally forget it's even there, and then I said, “That’s it! No one has one of those!”

I’m pretty sure no one has one because I thought of it myself, I put it together myself. I cut the root-branch myself, I added the bugs myself. I guess you could say it was my “creation.”

I don’t even have a name for it. Cicada Gallery? Insects on Display? Lotta Cicadas?

But if you look closely at it, you can see my favorite insect, the Cicada, several of them in fact, perched at various points on the tree root.

I’ve had it for about twelve years now, and have been adding insects to the “branch” from time to time. I don’t kill the bugs… they’re usually freshly dead when I find them. If they die in my path, and if their little bodies look whole and untouched, I glue them to the branchwith rubber cement!

Right now, I have on display a Carpenter Bee, a Japanese Hornet, a dragonfly, and several Cicadas.

Why do I keep them? Well, I became enthralled with the Cicadas one year when our area was having one of those summer events everyone recognizes as the emergence of the 17-year “locust.” They are not locusts, they are Cicadas. They might have been the 13-year sort, or the annual cicada. That year I was able to capture a Cicada just as it was about to emerge from its larval hard shell stage, and it was as beautiful as watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon. I’ve had a great fascination for them ever since.

So, in remembrance of them, I suppose, and to help educate others who are curious, in or out of the classroom, I keep this little “nature” display in my drawing room, amidst all the other curious things that I am involved in.

Hmmm, I think these pictures are saying a lot more than I probably would have written about myself!

If anyone does have something like this hanging around their house, I'm thinking we might be kindred spirits!