silverjam

Bedtime Story: Moffy

By Adelene Mobarak and Jason Mobarak

(The following is a bedtime story constructed with ideas from my daughter, I filled in all the details.)

Once upon a time there was a butterfly, named Moffy.  He was a strange sort of butterfly.  Small, with a mix of brown and grey, with an intricate pattern of different browns and grays all over his wings.

He couldn’t fly very well, and he really liked bright lights.  He loved to fly around bright lights at night.  You see, his friends didn’t like the bright light as much as Moffy. They preferred sitting and appreciating the lights before they fell asleep, they liked to sit on some flowers. Moffy on the other hand, really, really loved the lights.  He would flutter and fly around the light in big circles, and sometimes crash into the light.  And oh! did he love doing this!

One day, Moffy was out in a garden with his friends, with tall grass and pretty flowers all around. Moffy saw flowers colored in yellows, blues and reds... so many pretty flowers... HEY MOFFY LOOK OUT!!  BAM!! OH NO!!  Moffy flew into a big, big rock!  He bonked his head!  And boy did it hurt.  He said, “That smarts, I might have to cry, but I’m not gonna” … so the little butterfly held it in, and he did his best to not cry.  But as hard as he tried he couldn’t hold it in.

Tears started gushing from his eyes.  Some other butterflies that Moffy didn’t know, came over to where he was and asked him, “Are you ok little fella?”.  Moffy replied, “Yes, ::snif:: ::snif::, I’m OK, I just bumped my head”.

“Well, maybe you should go to the butterfly hospital!  A bump to the head can be serious for a butterfly!  You could be very sick!”

The other butterflies rushed off before Moffy could protest!  He didn’t think he needed to go to the hospital, he’d bumped his head quite often, running into lights during the night, and it never bothered him, this time it felt worse than bumping into a light, but it didn’t feel that bad.

Then, off in the distance Moffy heard sirens as the butterflambulance approached.  Moffy was sitting in a patch of grass, next to the rock that he bumped his head on.  He could see the ambulance’s white exterior, bright against the green grass.  The butterflambulance was a strange creature, with butterfly wings, but about twice long as normal.  Where the body of the butterfly would have been, there was a big white box!  Was it a big giant butterfly?!  Moffy squinted... NO!  There were people inside of it!

On all sides, there were square holes for butterflies to look out of them.  And indeed, he could see inside there were two butterflies, with their wings colored in white, blue and red patches.  One of the butterflies looked as if he was controlling the big butterflambulance!  He was driving!

Moffy was amazed that the butterflambulance was a giant flying machine that they used to carry sick butterflies to the hospital.  Moffy had never seen such a contraption, to his eyes this ambulance was a wondrous sight, and for a moment, he even forgot that his head was hurt.  When the ambulance finally arrived he struggled to remember why they were there, he was too interested in the amazing flying ambulance.

He stuttered when they asked him, “Hello little Sir!  How can we help you?  What seems to be the problem?”

“I... I... I bumped my head, and the other butterflies insisted that I go to the hospital!  But really, I do feel OK now, I don’t think I need to go to the hospital!” said Moffy.

“Sir, you should go to the hospital right away, a head bump might not feel like much, but it can get serious very quickly, let’s go, right now!” said the butterfly EMT.

“Well... well... OK”

They loaded him in to the butterflambulance.  Off they went, out of the garden, up and over a big wall, a wall that Moffy could never get over himself!  Moffy saw many wonderous things out the windows of the blutterflambulance.  He saw rivers of hard black goo, supremely massive fields of grass, made into neat squares and separated by big flat rocks made so smooth that they looked like the skin of a grey beast.

After what seem like a long, long drive, they arrived at the hospital, outside it read:


Lepidoptera General Hospital
124 West Eocene Lane
Monarch City, Papilionoidea Prefecture

...he didn’t have much time to read though, as soon as they got there, they rushed him out of the ambulance and into the hospital!

“We’ve got a head injury, we need to get him into the butterflexray STAT!”

Moffy thought:  “The butterflexray!?  What is that?  Am I OK?”


A special butterfly, colored in white and teal (and wearing some strange, orange, squishy plastic shoes) came over and said: “Don’t worry son, we’ll take care of you.  We’re just going to use a machine to see if you hurt your head”.  The special butterfly was called a “doctor”.

They rushed off to a room, in it was the butterflexray machine.  The machine made big whirring and clicking sounds: BRRRRUMMMMM CLICK CLANK CLACK... but a butterfly nurse was there to make sure he wasn’t scared.

Later, Moffy lay on a bed and the doctor came over: “Well, son, it looks like you’re OK, in fact,  you’re not hurt at all... but I’m afraid I have some, erm, what may be, startling news: it says here that you’re a butterfly, but the butterflexray shows that you are not a butterfly, but rather: A MOTH!”

The doctor continued: “You see, Moffy, hitting your head can be very serious for a butterfly, because we don’t do that very often, but for moths, it happens quite often and it’s not a big deal.”

Moffy was glad he was ok, but he thought out loud: “How could I be a moth?  The moment I woke up in the garden the first time, I’ve lived with all my buttferfly friends, I thought I was one of them!”

“Well, don’t worry son, it seems you just hatched early, in not too long your friends and family will hatch and you’ll find that there will be plenty more moths to play with!”

But Moffy thought: “I don’t want to wait for the other moths, I like my butterfly friends, I want to play with them!!”

So, off they went, away from the hospital and back to the garden where Moffy lived... little did Moffy know a surprise was waiting for him when he got back to the garden: all his butterfly friends were there waiting to greet him!

“WELCOME BACK MOFFY WE MISSED YOU!” a sign read.  They all yelled, “Moffy, are you OK?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m glad you’re all here.  They told something disturbing though...”

“What was it Moffy?”

“They said I’m not a butterfly, I’m a moth!!”

“Well, we all suspected that Moffy, those were strangers that sent you to the hospital.  We didn’t tell you about being a moth because we didn’t want you to feel different.  You see, moths and butterflies do a lot of the same things.  We eat nectar, we like to sit on flowers, we love gardens, and we both fly around to get from place to place.  You just like to stay up a lot later than us, and you’re very, very fond of bright lights at night.  That’s what made us suspect you were moth.”

“You see, we don’t usually have many moths to play with, but we found that we were so alike there wasn’t any reason to treat you differently.”

Moffy was very happy to learn this: he loved his butterfly friends, and he loved his garden, but perhaps most all, he loved knowing that he was a moth, and not a funny looking butterfly.  He also looked forward to what the doctor said: soon he and the butterflies would have lots of other moths to play with!

Moffy liked one last thing too: when the other moths hatched, he would finally have someone to fly around bright lights with at night!  Yay!

(Image credits: first and second).

Squash Bug's Worst Nightmare: A Hand Vaccuum


Our squash plants have long been plagued by squash bugs which pretty much spell death (at some point) for a squash plant.  I've noticed that while a squash plant can survive for a while, the infestation makes it hard for it to produce fruit.


Rightly so though, the damage can get pretty intense:



We usually get squash bugs late in the season after the squash has had plenty of time to produce lots of fruit.  This year we got them pretty much right after we planted the squash.  Seeing these pests pretty much right after we planted is quite disheartening since it means we just planted the squash for the bugs to eat.  Thus, no squash for us... [insert sad face]

So... what do you do about squash bugs?  The prevailing consensus from the hobbyist gardeners I know is pretty much: "not much you can do, they're impossible to kill".  That is, if you want to eat your squash, and not spray pesticides all over it and wait 2 months until you can actually pick and eat the squash.

One solution I had heard from a co-worker was that his retired father has time to just pick the squash bugs off by hand... this obviously would not work for us, being time starved parents.  However, this sort of mechanical solution seems like something the squash bugs really can't fend off.  There's not much they can do if they're physically removed from the plant.

Hence... the vacuum.  Using a vacuum is possibly the best way to control squash bugs on a small scale.

I had initially tried a shop vacuum, like this one:

Ridgid WD1450 14-Gallon 6-Horsepower Wet/Dry Vacuum

For obvious reasons this didn't work, it is way too powerful and ended up damaging the plant by inhaling the leaves.  The next step was to find something that would removed the bugs but not harm the plant.

A low power hand vacuum does the job well. Such as one of these:


The cheaper the better because it's going to break (any brand I have had breaks within a year or then develops a one minute battery life) and you want it to be low power (low voltage rating) so it removes the bug but is harmless to the plant.  Also, the smaller the better, a smaller vacuum will be more mobile when attempting to remove the bugs from the underside of the leaves.

It's key to stay on top of the squash bugs to enable the plant to recover from the damage.  The squash bugs should eventually die out provided you can remove enough generations early enough to prevent them from breeding and laying eggs.

Be sure to also remove the squash bug eggs with a butter knife, this will shorten the number of iterations you have to go through before the squash bugs stop coming back.

If the squash bugs aren't diligently removed, the plant may survice but it probably will not fruit.  A plant that is constantly focused on rebuilding itself from parasite damage isn't going to spend any time producing fruit.

Happy vacuuming!

Albuquerque 311 Success Story, Water Wise

Occasionally I play Frisbee with coworkers at Sunset Canyon Park. Last week the sprinklers were on in the middle of the day. Which caused some confusion given that Albuquerque is supposed to be a water wise city. However, what is one lowly citizen supposed to do to protect our water resources?

The source of confusion comes from the knowledge that Albuquerque is supposedly doing great on it's water conservation program— if so, why would a city park be watering in the middle of the day?

The Albuquerque Water Utility Authority offers rebates for attending water smart classes. These classes are informative, they discuss how Albuquerque was once thought to be a City atop Lake Superior. Now, the city is being more conservative, considering new information from advances in technology that say all that water isn't easily accessible or usable.

Hence, the issue of a watering system gone awry. As it turns out, 311 is a great way to report these issues. I called 311 as soon as we saw the problem and it was reported easily within minutes. The 311 personnel I spoke with was both helpful and courteous.

She stated that sometimes watering systems are on if there's an extra need for it; if the grass or plants in the area need extra water. However, this wasn't the case at Sunset Canyon.

Several days went by and I didn't think anything of it. I reported it, I did my part. I assumed the report would go in the vast abyss of government bureaucracy and paralysis— but maybe it would get fixed.

To my surprise, less than a week later, I received a call from someone at the parks and recreation department:

Hi we received your report via 311, thank you for reporting it, we have a sprinkler control system that's on the fritz, I have someone looking at it.

Awesome! Good job Albuquerque. I never expected to actually hear back from someone on an issue like this. It made my citizen "call to action" feel like I actually made a difference in the community. All via Albuquerque's 311 system.

A New Way for McDonalds to Suck

Heard those commercials about how we're (in Albuquerque, NM) in some special "test market" for the McDonalds third pounders? If they're made correctly they're not bad. I kind of like the 1/3 pounder mushroom and swiss. The sandwich should really be renamed "canned mushrooms, mayonnaise, salt, meat & some more mayonnaise and salt".


Any way, anytime you introduce a new ingredient (/ component) to a complex system (the McDonalds assembly line)-- it presents new opportunities for interesting failures. The mushrooms in particular seem to have a tendency to turn into hard plastic discs, because... actually, I'm not sure how they managed to do this.

Therefore is seems McDonalds could turn the waste mushrooms in to plastic pellets and sell them to the Chinese manufactures that mass produce their toys.
Anyway, I encountered this not long ago, maybe I won't order the mushroom & swiss late at night.

A Few Comments on the Feliway Cat Pheromone Diffuser

A couple months ago we adopted two new cats from a friend of ours. A tabby named Taylor and a calico named Katsu.  We had one existing cat that was already known for not really getting along with other cats.

Taylor (after several months) was very good about leaving the existing cat (Sydney) alone and letting her get used to him.  Katsu on the other hand was combative and started fighting with Sydney.

We tried bathing them together (that worked with Sydney and a previous cat) but that only left my father with a cat bite.  Several, places on the Internet suggest that some cats may never get along.

Lately we've been using the Feliway Diffuser filled with cat "happy juice".  The product sounds wonderful, but since we put it in place a week or so ago it doesn't seem to have any effect since we've had several incidents since then.

The basic idea of the diffuser is that it emits synthetic pheromones that a mother cat would emit to calm her kittens.  We may not have let our cats stew in it long enough (we have three of them in our 1300 square foot house, one is supposed to cover 750 square feet)-- or the relationship between the cats is just irreparable.

Behavior modification was kind of a last ditch effort so we may be looking to adopt out the problem cat in the next few weeks.