Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Yesterday when we were at the park Nefarious and I noticed some strange black “smears” on the ground, and on second observation we realized they were ants. I don’t believe that ants walk single file to hide their numbers or anything so ordered (as remarkably ordered and well run their societies seem to be), but I wasn’t expecting what I saw either. They were a giant churning mass of insects, but slowly moving as a group. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think this is how they always move, is it? It wasn’t a unique behavior and many of the ant colonies were doing the same. It reminded me of a rat king. Click for closeup.

I’m going to be a bit embarrassed if I find out this is how ants always locomote and I’ve somehow only noticed now. Or worse yet, forgot.

Speaking of smears, wow is the pond at High Park revolting, the one that I recently mentioned had just been stocked with hundreds of small fish — an act that I have to accept was quite cruel. The surface was covered in a shimmering membrane of oil, garbage was floating everywhere, and there were massive algal blooms in a majority of the murky, grimy water. Really sickening and I wish there was some way to control it.

We took a hike down to the river that separates the park from the richy-rich community on the west side, and even it was full of garbage, and anywhere there was a comfortable bench-like log it would be surrounded by a thick halo of plastic bags, bottles, and much foodstuff packaging. Horrible. It must be emotionally difficult for the people who fight to keep the resource of the park — or parks I should say, because almost every one in the city has the same plague — beautiful for the patrons, who seem to go out of their way to destroy that beauty. I almost believe that the sewer/flood tunnels might be cleaner.

This upcoming week I’m eagerly waiting for the mail, because I ordered a bit of glow in the dark powder and am pretty excited about making some exiting projects. I also got some “InstaMorph“, which is a nylon/plastic with a very low melting pot. It becomes soft and formable in hot water, and then when it cools it’s hard again. I can think of so many projects that it would be a lifesaver on (including the skull mouse I’m working on, which I’ve put a lot of time into making the mechanics of that would have been very fast with this plastic). And today after seeing the Thor movie (“meh” is my review — not horrible, but not worth paying to see I think) we stopped by a craft shop and I got a new kind of clear casting plastic that I hope works as well as the package because I’m still trying to find a clear plastic that I can make without ruining it with trapped bubbles. While there we found some of the Sculpey eraser clay which is pretty neat stuff. Nefarious and I made some erasers for her and when we tested them out they worked perfectly. It also squeezes into my molds very nicely, opening up some options that I know will make Nefarious’s schoolmates quite jealous.

Now I’m going to watch the new Discovery Channel reality show on gunsmithing.