Our rabbits. . . it's a little hard to appreciate the bunnies' cuteness with their odd poses and lack of red-eye reduction, but we wanted to update you all on their growth. We think baby bunnies may be on the way!
Festival season kicked off a couple weekends ago with Teej--a festival for women to do "puja" (worship) asking for long life for their husbands and purifying themselves for the year to come. We were in Pokhara for the start of the event--carnival games, giant swings called "pings" and lots of music and dancing by the lake. We learned that a Teej "tune" exists and every year women from the villages make up lyrics on the spot about the events of the past year. At this festival, all who wish get to sing a song for the crowd. I was told city women have lost the art, but the village ladies are quite adept and clever. Dancing is a HUGE part of this festival and our landlady took over the courtyard for her dance party one night. Cultural dance here is an art all the ladies know--our grandma landlord still has the moves! I left the house to cut grass for our rabbits and was pulled into the dance party. For those of you who know me and dancing. . .it's not good. Anyway, one girl taught me a few handtwists and foot stomps. I gave it a good try, but pretty sure I never got it. It was neat to see how important their dance is to them and how proud they are of it. I have a video that was loading when our power shut off and we lost our internet connection. I'll try again so you can get an idea of what this looks like.
It is rare that I encounter a plant or insect which Andrew has not already discovered. This little fly may be my first. We were sipping tea and studying Nepali while we were in Pokhara and this little guy (girl???) joined us. It cooperated very well for one of Andrew's fantastic close-ups.
6 comments:
Hi guys, thanks for the post card. We got it a couple of weeks ago. We think of you quite often and it great to hear how your doing.
- love B & J
I'm not sure why my name is "John" but I changed it to Brian, lol.
Wow, that's cool, kind of looks like plastic, weird that it's so clear, and nice pic too!
did you get little bunnies afterall?? :)
So I found this fly rather interesting, and I emailed the pic to a couple diptera specialists to ask about it. I learned that it is probably a very teneral species of the family Celyphidae. Apparently the balloon shaped part is the scutellum, and is a feature common to this family and others. Interesting eh? I didn't really learn what the enlarged scutellum's function is but I did learn something...
Post a Comment