MONARCH BUTTERFLY VISITS MARASH BOY TO WISH HIM A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Photo by MarashGirl©2021 Can you see the butterfly at the top center of the above photo?

The Honey Bee Is Back in Newton Corner, Massachusetts!

The First Honey Bee of the Season!                              Photo by Marash Girl

Carnivorous Plant Exhibit, U.S. Botanic Gardens, Washington, DC

Thinking the whole thing a joke, kids pose as food for carnivorous plants.

Captured by Marash GIrl's camera and the carnivorous plant (above), this fly is not laughing.

"Hands on" displays at the Botanic Gardens help kids to understand the reality of meat-eating plants.

The question is, can the plant tell the difference between an insect and a human finger?  Enila tells of a friend who has a pet plant to which she feeds ground meat!  Are there vegan plants? Plants that eat other plants?

N.B.  Marash Girl could have used a few carnivorous plants in her kitchen last week! (See Marash Girl's post, A Phalanx of Flies)

Fireflies, Brooklyn, New York, 1950's

Photo Credit:  Weber Street Photography

Fireflies on E. 15th Street, Brooklyn, New York.

When Marash Girl lived in Manhattan, she would often visit her Great Uncle Manoog and her Brooklyn cousins by taking the BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit) to E.16th Street and Avenue U, where, getting off the train,  she descended the steep stairway and walked two blocks to her cousins' two floor brick home on E.15th Street (behind which the BMT roared both day and night). It was good times at Uncle Manoog's house who made his own red wine and always shared the brew with his guests. Uncle Manoog was first cousin to Marash Girl's grandfather Movses, (and delighted in reminding the family that unlike his cousin, he had never removed the 'j' from the ....jian of his last name!)  Uncle Manoog and Aunty Lucia lived with Uncle Tony, Aunty Mary and Marash Girl's cousins, young Mary and Jeannie, in the heart of Brooklyn, New York.  It was there that, as a young girl, Marash Girl first became intimately acquainted with fireflies.  This is what happened.  One day, cousin Richie Koumruian (whose mother Auntie Gohar, born in Marash, was the daughter of  Great Uncle Manoog and Great Auntie Lucia) visited from the Bronx.  (Richie and his mom lived at 1645 Paulding Avenue in the Bronx -- yes, Marash Girl still remembers!)  As night descended, and darkness began to take over the Brooklyn streets, Cousin Richie began catching fireflies in a Mason jar, fascinating his young cousin.  (He offered to let young Marash Girl try to catch a firefly.  A bit shy, try she did, surprising herself by actually adding to Cousin Richie's collection.) When he had filled the bottle with fireflies, he invited Marash Girl to join him as he walked around the now dark neighborhood, carrying the jar of fireflies to light his way.   

It was only later in life that Marash Girl learned that fireflies light up to attract their mates.  Perhaps we humans light up as well, but thankfully there are no giants out there collecting us into a bottle to light up their nights