We’ve had a couple of unusual visitors to the Colehaus garden lately, maybe vying to bring some added interest to all the black and white kitty visitors we’ve been inundated with most of last year.

On the way out through the open garage door, Mom spied what looked like a mouse “gift” from a visiting neighborhood cat. Nope. It’s a newt! True, it was a little mangled probably from some cat picking on it and we know newts/salamanders are very good at regenerating their own wounds if left alone to do so. To think it and Mom were in the same place at the same time makes one think it was meant to be.

Mom knew never to touch a newt or salamander because their skin often contains toxins so she scooped it into a shallow bucket with a scoop and released it in a safe spot near our backyard fountain. It wasted no time scrambling deep into some groundcover there. Be safe and heal yourself, little newt!

Elsewhere in the yard, a few weeks earlier, Mom spotted something waving at her from the top of a bush.

This Praying Mantis, probably a female, is welcome in our garden because of the huge number of pests they eat, though they do tend eat the good bugs as well. Think of it as a hearty meal of houseflies with a side of honey bee. The weather was starting to become chilly so we didn’t expect to see it again after this day. In the last week of December, there she was again, near our front door where spiders and other bugs tend to hang out in their bid to find a way indoors. Did you know Praying Mantis’ can recognize human faces a little like crows are able to? True!

She watched Mom and then made her way toward the chair Mom was sitting in. While Mom isn’t afraid of most bugs, she really didn’t want this big Praying Mantis crawling on her so she steered it off into the nearby sweet alyssum that always has bugs living in it and is probably where those spiders bunk overnight.

Praying Mantis’ only live about a year, usually dying off around the time of first frost. We’ve yet to have a first big frost – close but not yet. We haven’t seen it again and wish her well. Maybe she laid an egg somewhere and maybe we’ll see another one later this year!

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A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2025 – No post
2024 – No post
2023 – No post
2022 – Helpful Quint
2021 – No post
2020 – No post
2019 – No post
2018 – No post
2017 – No post
2016 – No post
2015 – Wordless Wednesday
2014 – No post
2013 – All Mine
2012 – No post