Phenology: Swimming Woodlouse

Some people report continuing drought...

http://neverspent.dreamwidth.org/118515.html

...and frankly I envy them. The weather here has reverted to that nasty Florida-type pattern of constant humidity with frequent heavy rain storms that don't do much to break the heat.

Most days I've stayed home. (Even when airborne chemical poisoning kept me indoors, plenty of indoor work goes better when the sun is shining too.) Most days the rain has come late in the afternoon, when the computer center's closed anyway.

When in town, I've been trying, so far as other people's vacations and heat-related illnesses and so on have allowed, to organize support for another computer center. When that happens I'll be able to do justice to this web site. So far I have about 400 comments to acknowledge and 1000 e-mails to read, post links, and/or reply to. Now that the computer center is restricting everyone to a maximum of two hours a day, there's no way this backlog of work can be touched here. The good news is that other computer center regulars are seeing the need for a place where computers are set up for serious work- and college-related use, rather than short-term supervised entertainment for children who ought to be reading books or playing outdoors anyway.

But today the rain set in about 4 a.m., so I took out an umbrella, put on sand shoes, and slogged out to the computer center. Nature sights along the way included blooms on a northern variety of hibiscus locally called "Rose of Sharon," but the most distinctive thing I saw this morning was the little gray crustacean called a woodlouse, swimming through the rainwater across a paved road.

That woodlice can swim when they have to isn't news. That their natural habitat is damp, but not actually wet (they breathe air and eat decaying wood) isn't news. That it's been damp enough that this woodlouse had (a) relocated to the sun-baked, well-mown shoulder of a road, and (b) been flooded out even there, shows how much rain we've absorbed in the past week. Ouch.

I didn't have a camera, and wouldn't have taken one out in the rain if I'd had one, and the dark gray woodlouse wouldn't have shown up well against the dark gray pavement if I'd tried to snap its picture. However, some of you have been reading last year's post about ugly little animals that belong in a yard or garden, which also mentions woodlice, so you might be interested in learning more about them. Here's a wonderfully clear, highly magnified photo of the "pillbug" kind:

http://neverspent.dreamwidth.org/116849.html

Here's the Wikipedia fact sheet about this animal family. (Pictures are magnified for clarity. In real life they grow about half an inch long.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse

Here's a gross-out page that may amuse middle school readers. (Please don't eat woodlice. If you do, don't say it was my idea.)

http://www.porcellio.scaber.org/woodlice/recipes.htm

Google also turns up pages that list woodlice as pests and offer tips on "getting rid of" them without eating them. Bah, humbug. ("Humbug," incidentally, seems to be one of the names that has not become a well documented local nickname for a species of woodlouse.) If you have woodlice in or around your house, the woodlice are the least of your problems--the damp and decay that have attracted them are what need to be fixed. When the soil is dry enough to keep your home healthy for humans, the woodlice will move on.