Texas Renaissance Woman

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Texas Renaissance Woman

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My Dusty Stall

My Dusty Stall

Even the most pestering, feared and least of these, work hard to provide for their family.

At the horse barn, moving between stalls, a female wasp works feverishly to drag her prey to her final destination. The birthing nest.

LOOK CLOSE! (BOTTOM LEFT)

LOOK CLOSE! (BOTTOM LEFT)

I know it sounds like I’m on Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. But I just had to share with you.

I was at a friend’s horse facility and in the corner of my eye I noticed something several feet away moving on the ground. Since my eyesight is not what it used to be, I had no clue what I was watching. I just know that the movements were labored and erratic and not conforming to anything I’d witnessed before. As I continued to watch I marveled at how rapidly this creature was traversing on the ground. Me being me, I could not let this riddle go unanswered.

As I walked up to the insect, I saw it was a blue winged wasp of some kind and it was dragging a spider whose body was about twice as large as the wasp!

DUSTY TRAIL

DUSTY TRAIL

As you all know I never go anywhere without my phone in my hand; so of course, I snapped a few pictures and as I was switching to video mode the wasp noticed me and flew away. So, I felt bad that I’d deprived this wasp of what I thought to be dinner. But as I walked away the wasp came back to its prey.

So, I want you to picture this; I am standing there in a 105⁰ hot dusty horse stall with a horse looking to bite me as I’m pretending to be Jim Fowler, host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

After the wasp dragged its prey under the fence and I went home. My mind continued to marvel at what I had seen. I called a friend of mine who knows a little bit about everything and not a lot about anything telling him about the incident.

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LABOR WHEN IN LABOR?

He told me that wasps kill spiders and then lay their eggs in the spider and bury it. And when the eggs hatch they eat their “spider bed” and emerge from the ground!  Wow! I can see now why this intrigued me so much.

As gruesome as that sounds it made me marvel at what God’s creatures do to propagate the next generation.

We mothers know the pain of carrying and giving birth to a baby but as soon as we see their first coo, cry or smile it’s all forgotten.  I suppose all mothers in the kingdom go through something of the sort.

The sacrifices that animals make for their offspring defy imagination.

On a side note, most have heard don’t get between a mama bear and her cub. Why? She will do whatever she needs to protect her own.  Blue whales are pregnant for a year before birthing their calves.  And Wasp’s drag bedding, for what may be miles in their estimation, while fully pregnant with eggs.

This beauty of God’s creation even when seen through the epic style of Wasp vs. Spider is uplifting and inspiring to me.  So as you go about your day today and you’re navigating your work day to provide for your offspring, at the very least give thanks that you don’t have to drag a spider through a dusty stall for miles while preparing to give birth.