Somebody's Hiding In Our Cassia Tree

Tuesday I tried to catch up on yard work. As I edged the front yard, a car stopped at the curb and the man called me over; he asked me if he could root some cuttings from our cassia tree. I snipped off a few branches and advised him to peel back the bark a bit and worry the cut, then to place the branches in a bottle of water with an aspirin to foster root growth.

Our friend Barbara gave us our Cassia tree about three years ago. At first we planted it beside the house, but there the plant stayed only about knee high. Two years ago I transplanted it into a spot with full sun at the foot of the drive and it took off growing.

Each night the leaves of our plant fold in on themselves like clasped hands. Butterflies, the kind called cloudless sulphur I think, throng to the plant.

They lay eggs.

Caterpillars hatch out.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of caterpillars.

Mockingbirds swoop in to eat those caterpillars.

Here’s a picture of a caterpillar-covered branch:

Just look at all those caterpilars!

What? You don't see them?

Lets look closer:

Just look at all those bugs… What? You still can’t see them?They are yellow with brownish-black markings like the flower stamens.

Here, I’ll get one down for you to see:

They blend so well with the flower parts that, even though I know they are there, I have to search for one.

I’m impressed.

I realize that the protective coloration of creatures does not necessarily prove any intelligent design, or a divine plan, or the existence of God above the natural world ... but their camouflage does make me wonder if Somebody isn’t hiding these caterpillars from hungry mockingbirds.

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Back when we were poor, eating with Food Stamps and living in HUD housing, I wrote a Thanksgiving article for a local newspaper. If you’re interested in what a person living in deep poverty has to say about being thankful, here’s a link to The Little End Of The Horn.

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While Ginny & I were away, my son Donald and his friend Shawn started a new ongoing computer project which I suppose could be called The Geek Bible. It generates a translation updating King James english into modren speech -- I think. Since I can bearly cut and paste with a computer, the intracacies of this computer code project escape me. But Geeks among you will want to check this out at http://www.rdex.net/projects/KJV_Translation/index.php .

It's 6 a.m. and I have no idea what my children are doing!