Battle of the Pollinators!

We were in the gamelands for some morning exercise, and the pollinators were going crazy on the pink thistle blooms that are everywhere right now. I spotted a bunch of fritillaries, of which I have seen MANY this summer, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. But then they were joined by a monarch, and suddenly, the monarch and the bumblebee were duking it out for first place on the breakfast line! Slow down, folks. There's plenty for everyone!

My soundtrack song is Heart, performing an awesome cover of the Led Zep classic, the Battle of Evermore.






P.S. At about a quarter to nine in the morning, my husband and I heard around 10 gun shots ring out from not far behind our house. In the nearly 20 years that I've lived here, this has not happened before. Let me advise you this: If this happens to you, resist the temptation to ask about what the cause of the gun shots might be on your local Facebook neighbors group. 

(A posting that, by the way, will appear there among the requests for recommendations on local plumbers, commentary about the strange dude walking barefoot past the cemetery at midnight, and the usual postings about wayward animals on the lam, sweet corn for sale, porch give-aways, etc.) 

Why NOT, do you ask? Because making such a posting is likely to earn you the following items on your Bingo card:
*A remark from some dude (yes, it's always a guy, and yes, he's always wearing camo in his profile picture) telling you that it is country out here, and that people just shoot guns in the country, it is nothing to worry your pretty little head about.
*Comments from people who did not hear it, saying they did not hear it, so that everyone can question whether said gun shots ever really happened. (Oh, so it's my sensorium that's questionable? Hmm. . . )
*A list of all of the legitimate reasons why someone might be firing a gun in our rural area. And a reminder to me that I should NOT feel nervous!
*The single comment: Groundhogs? (Let me guess: they're arming the groundhogs now! Take cover! I hope somebody taught them how to handle a gun safely!)
*An admission from some lady nowhere near us saying her husband was target shooting that morning and fired five shots. Thanks for that.
*A single like from a stranger, followed by a friend request from that person, who turns out to be a hacker! No thanks for THAT!

Now, let me clear this up. 
1. I grew up in a place that was WAY MORE RURAL than it is where I currently reside. So nobody needs to explicate what "rural" or "country" means to me. We didn't HAVE towns like State College within easy driving distance. It was REAL country. With cows and trees and streams and mountains and not much else. And the Democrats were (and probably STILL ARE) just as likely as the Republicans to have guns and be willing to whip them out and shoot you with them for trespassing.
2. When I hear a gun shot around here, it typically means someone is giving mercy to a deer that was hit, but not killed, on the road that runs past our house. The deer walk through our yard a lot. My query's intent: was one of our deer killed today? (Maybe I should have just asked it like that?)
3. And no, it should NOT take 10 shots to lend mercy to the suffering; but you might be just as sorry as WE were to learn that the individual who lent mercy to the last deer shot and killed here after being hit by a car took FOUR SHOTS to do it, at point-blank range, to an animal that could not even CRAWL. Yes, that was and still is a horrifying memory to me. And I still b*tch and moan about how people drive WAY TOO EFFIN' FAST on the road that goes by our house. So sue me. If you had dragged as many dead or dying (and sometimes beloved) animals off this road as I have, perhaps you would understand where I'm coming from.**
4. I have handled guns and grown up around guns. I do not need lectures from ANYone about what guns are for, that it is normal to hear one go off, or that I need to calm down and stop asking questions if I hear gun shots nearby.
5. Now, I do admit that none of the responses, while condescending, ever actually attacked me or called me bad names. But they insinuated, as people do, that I was asking a stupid question; and they acted like I wasn't "from here," as people do; and they talked down to me; and they tried to placate me. Can you tell that I don't like that? Then don't do it to anyone else!
6. And if you ask me, Did you accomplish your objectives by making such a posting? The answer is Absolutely Not! And I'm guessing I'm not the first!
7. What do I expect you (or me?) to learn from this incident? Well, oddly enough, the social dynamics of electronic communications was my graduate research topic. So you think that I would know all about these things. And I do. I actually do. I was one of the first social media researchers back in the 1980s and 1990s when all of this online social media stuff felt so new and exciting; back when social media was listservs instead of web pages and Facebook and Instagram (each of which is interesting enough in its own right, and yes, I still do enjoy pulling up a chair, popping some popcorn, and watching a good online dust-up). And surprisingly enough, for such a "nice" girl (my office-mate Ellen described me as "Meg Ryan, with a Thesaurus"), I actually LOVE a good flame war - ask Rolando, from the days of the Cinema-L listserv, who made the mistake of saying that he hated the movie The Shining. Oh my, that didn't end well! I guess I'd say think twice and be careful of your tone; don't be dismissive of people who ask simple questions on supposedly "friendly" neighborhood Facebook groups; and for God's sake, DON'T TELL PEOPLE HOW TO FEEL.
8. I've come back to add this one: you do not ever have to reply, defend yourself, or take any action that you don't feel like taking during an online interaction. If something happens that makes you feel uncomfortable, or something objectionable is said, screen-shot it and keep a copy, just in case. You may also elect to delete your own comments, or the entire posting, if you grow tired of it all. In fact, diffusing aggression with light humor is a wonderful skill to have in our modern online life, and I am working on getting better at that. To sum up: engaging in confrontational interactions online is a CHOICE, and nobody can make you do it. That is all. *eye-roll and head-desk* Social media researcher: over and out!



**And no, no matter how much you beg and cajole, I won't even get into the details of the dead chipmunk toss competition that I had about a month ago with a neighbor. Even my husband has not heard about THAT one. I'll just say this: Oh, the unexpected things that happen in the country!