Maggie sipped her tea as she strolled her backyard the next morning. She paused and frowned as she looked down at the patch of ground cover in her garden. A five-inch square swath of the creeping thyme had been reduced to stubble. She frowned. Something eating it? But what? I can’t imagine. No, wait … that precise, neat area, taken down to a quarter inch of the ground, no animal did that. It’s not some-thing, it’s some-body.
She glanced around, her brow furrowed, wondering which of her neighbors had harvested her thyme for their kitchen. She knew them all, she and they were all good friends, none of them would be so petty.
After she finished her morning ritual, she went indoors, changed her slippers for shoes, gathered her purse, hat, and car keys, and left the house to run some errands, then meet her friends for their weekly game of hearts followed by a late lunch at a local diner. Returning home at 4:00 PM, she parked her car in the garage. Walking from the garage through her yard, she noticed another square of her thyme had been mown. Oh, for heaven’s sake! Who’s doing this? Maybe it is some garden pest after all. Some animals do things with that sort of precise geometry—like the hexagonal chambers in a bee hive, for example.
She turned toward a rustle in the bushes nearby and saw the creature staring at her. You! she thought.
She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. When she tapped the information icon, it identified the plant—Purple Coneflower—but not the animal. She opened the app “BugIQ”, imported the photo, and frowned as she read, “Unknown”.
“Who the hell are you,” Maggie said aloud.
She thrust her phone into her pocket. I have to identify this damned thing, but how? Maybe show the photo to some local university biology department. Better yet, capture it, and bring it in alive.
She stomped into the house, went to her bedroom closet and grabbed a wire coat hanger, then selected a needle and thread and a pair of scissors from her sewing kit. Next, to the basement, where she rummaged through a cardboard box full of discarded clothes she kept for cleaning rags till she found an old lace curtain. She marched upstairs and sat at the kitchen table, spread her materials before her, and set to work. An hour later she smiled and admired her handiwork—a butterfly net. Once again, my Girl Scout training serves me well.
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