Little Friend Shows up in the Garden Again

 
I love praying mantises, and often find one or more on my plants, devouring bugs for me at this time of year. This year it's quite a small guy, but none the less welcome.  See him there, giving us his better profile?

I find that the plural of mantis is mantises, how disappointing. I was hoping to find a more exotic one, such as mantok, or mantim, or maybe mantids.  Other languages have more interesting plurals.

When Handsome Son was a little guy, we sent away for a nest or chrysalis or something of praying mantises, and we had them hatching all over the vegetable garden, lovely.  Often we'd see a couple of babies hanging onto the back door screen, where they were quite able to withstand even high winds.  For years after, their offspring attended to bugs in the garden, very obligingly.

I love all the insects I ever met, because their architecture is so stunning.  Some really good artist made them..even the Asian stinkbugs have a wonderful sculptural shape.  

I realize that it's not everyone who gets excited about things like this.  Such as the friend who looked at me pityingly the other day when I pointed out a lovely miniature colony of fungi on the crossbar of my garden gate. 

You do realize, he said that this means it's rotting, no?  He's a contractor in real life, so fungi and that sort of thing on wood are not the same attractive items as they are to me, as I look at them through a magnifier!