Black Rain Gallery Inc

08/14/2026

A turkey vulture can't hurt a single living thing. Her talons are flat and dull, built for standing, not seizing. She doesn't hunt. She never has.

The spread wings dry her feathers and burn off bacteria in sunlight. The hiss is the only sound she owns because she has no voice box. The vomiting is panic, dumping weight to get light enough to lift off.

She eats what's already dead, and her gut neutralizes what would otherwise spread through the soil.

The most frightening-looking bird in the yard is the one cleaning up what nothing else will touch 🐾

08/14/2026

« All Events Dylan Scott Headlines the 114th Cherokee Indian Fair October 10 « 2026 Anthony Toineeta Memorial 7 Clans Rodeo Don’t miss your chance to experience Dylan Scott live at the 114th Cherokee Indian Fair! General fair admission is $20, with no additional cost to catch the performance. De...

08/14/2026

Nobody screams for the silverfish.

But the house centipede—the creature actually hunting the silverfish—gets the shoe every time.

The story says she's dangerous, that she bites, that where there's one there are hundreds.

Wrong three ways.

Her bite is uncommon, and her jaws usually can't cause serious harm to people. She isn't interested in you.

And if you find one, it doesn't mean your walls are filling up with hundreds of them. She's usually there because there's prey to hunt.

Her résumé reads like a pest-control invoice:

Silverfish.
Carpet beetle larvae.
Cockroach nymphs.
Ants.
Clothes moths.

She works mostly at night, charges nothing, and leaves no chemical residue—just fewer bugs.

So the next time she sprints across the bathroom floor…

Give her the night off.

She's one of the few creatures in your house actually helping with the pest problem. 🐛

08/14/2026

Leave one muddy spot. Your yard is spotless, your borders are sharp, and your butterflies are quietly going without something water can't give them.

Watch a sunny puddle's edge in July. If swallowtails or sulphurs are crowded on the wet ground with their wings up, they aren't drinking the way you'd think. They're mining it.

It's called puddling. Damp soil holds salts and minerals — sodium especially — that flowers don't provide. Nectar is sugar. It runs the engine. The minerals are what a male butterfly needs to make healthy s***m and pass nutrients to the female when he mates. A flowerbed without a damp patch is a kitchen with no salt.

It's mostly males you'll see, sometimes a dozen at once on the same wet inch of dirt.

🌿 The setup:

Shallow saucer or tub lid filled with sand or plain soil.

Pour in water until it's wet mud, not a pool — they land on the mud, not the water.

Sunny, sheltered spot near flowers. Keep it damp through the hot weeks.

Or do even less — stop tidying one low corner where the hose drips and let it stay muddy on purpose.

Nectar is the meal. The mud is the medicine 🌱

08/14/2026

Opossums are North America's only marsupial and one of nature's best pest controllers. Killing or relocating them removes a guardian that's protecting your property.

A single opossum eats up to 5,000 ticks per season — they're mobile tick vacuums

They consume venomous snakes, rats, cockroaches, and carrion you'd never want near your home

Opossums are immune to most snake venom and rarely carry rabies due to low body temperature

They're nomadic — they'll move on naturally within a few days

Relocated opossums often die because they don't know the new territory's resources

Removing one opossum just opens the territory for rats and mice to move in
You thought you were eliminating a pest. You evicted the solution to problems you don't see yet.

08/14/2026

THE APHIDS ARRIVED.

SO DID THE RESCUE TEAM. 🐞🌿

An aphid colony can explode incredibly quickly.

One week your roses look healthy.

The next, stems and leaves are covered in tiny, hungry insects.

So you reach for the spray.

But look closer first.

Five natural enemies may already be working the infestation.

🐞 LADYBUG LARVAE

That strange black, spiky, alligator-looking creature crawling across your plant?

It isn't a pest.

It's a baby ladybug.

Ladybug larvae are voracious aphid hunters and can consume large numbers of aphids before becoming the familiar spotted adults.

You almost sprayed the very insect you needed.

🦋 LACEWING LARVAE

They look nothing like delicate adult lacewings.

These little predators have curved, piercing jaws built for grabbing soft-bodied insects.

A single larva can consume many aphids during its development.

And some species even carry debris or prey remains on their backs as camouflage.

🪰 HOVERFLY LARVAE

They look like tiny, legless maggots.

But some hoverfly larvae are highly effective aphid predators.

Their mothers deliberately lay eggs near aphid colonies.

When the larvae hatch, they go to work.

🐝 BRACONID WASPS

This one sounds like science fiction.

Some parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside aphids.

The developing larva feeds within the aphid, eventually killing it and leaving behind a swollen, hardened “aphid mummy.”

That mummy is evidence that another natural enemy has already joined the fight.

🌿 BEFORE YOU SPRAY...

Walk around the plant.

Look underneath the leaves.

Check the stems.

Look closely at the insects before deciding what to kill.

Broad-spectrum insecticides can harm beneficial insects along with the pests you're trying to control.

Sometimes the garden has already called in reinforcements.

You just didn't recognize them.

🐞 THE FIRST RESPONDERS WERE ALREADY THERE.

Don't kill your pest-control team before you know who's on your side.

💬 Have you ever mistaken a ladybug larva or hoverfly larva for a garden pest?

📌 Save this guide before treating your next aphid outbreak.

08/14/2026

One of the top priorities on my Africa tours is finding something interesting to shoot during the amazing sunsets there. While finding a large mammal like elephant or giraffe is top priority, if we can't find one, a nice tree will do. And none of this wide angle stuff...shot at 600mm.

08/14/2026

08/14/2026