Nice Day to Start Again.....
by Jo Rebeka on 07/23/11We had quite a bit of rain last night (okay, this is the desert... it rained for 20 minutes!), so this morning when I went outside, I wasn't too surprised to see the Fritizens rushing around madly, though they seemed to be more interested in gathering elm seeds than in emptying their underground tunnels, so I took that to mean they had weathered the storm pretty well and the thunder and lightning had just made them rather hungry.
I had alot of studio work to do, so I didn't stay long, but wished my tiny friends good luck foraging and continued on to my studio.
After a little while, however, as I was working away, I heard something very surprising coming from the vicinity of Ant-ioch... it sounded something like this:
hey little sister ...... (to really get the whole gestalt of the moment, please right click to open the link in a new window, then return here to read the rest....)
Could it be true? I rushed outside to see, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but two tiny winged fire ants, posing in front of the gates to the city!
What could this mean? Well, just one thing... fire ants appear in winged pairs only when they are ready to start a new colony, and there they were... the winged virgin queen and her short-lived but extremely enthusiastic male consort.
I knew that by Ant-iochian tradition, they would have already undergone what some consider to be the most harrowing aspect of matrimony...
Yes, I can scarcely imagine what is discussed in pre-marital counseling for a young queen, but....
As soon as that was over, the bride bustled inside and the male waited outside, possibly enjoying a final smoke in his last moments of freedom.
Shortly, however, he went inside too. Then she came out, surrounded by a bevy of regular fritizens, grooming and fussing over here just as you would expect before any wedding anywhere...... and a last few words of wisdom......
She did not seem to be in a contemplative mood, however, and pretty quickly they all returned inside, but not before some weisenheimer snapped this:
After everyone went back inside, presumably for the exchange of vows (this is when the "tunnel cam" would be so cool!), it was only a few seconds before a whole bunch of Fritzens came rushing out of the nest and started milling about. I think this must have been the reception, because the bride and groom seemed a bit uneasy and anxious, but everybody else was having a wonderful time....
I thought this was a great "atmospheric" shot, though I'm not completely sure if that is the bride or the groom.
Finally (actually very quickly, the fritizens are NOT into wasting time!) it was time to say goodbye to the newlyweds. As they prepared for their honeymoon flight, I got this one last shot of them together:
As they rubbed their wings together and got ready to take off, I found that I just couldn't stay to watch them fly away. I felt wistful, and even a little sad. I was happy for them, of course but I couldn't help wondering... where will they go? How will they make a life for themselves.... and will there be frit?????
Stay tuned....... I guess I will do the 'Queen's Dream Revealed' tomorrow, since it got so thoroughly pre-empted today!
