Praying Mantis

          We've had quite a few bugs outside our house lately. I don't know if it's the weather or the harvesting or just the fact that we live in the Valley. To my surprise this big guy was relaxing on our patio chair and hung out long enough for me to take a quick photo of him. It looks like he has big funky eyes, but in fact when you zoom in on him (as I kindly have done for you, below), you'll see that the eyes are instead very small black dots. I'm assuming that's some sort of survival trick, don't you think? He has a funny mouth too.