Year 2020 Felt Like a Close Encounter of the Worst Kind

The year 2020 felt like a close encounter of the worst kind.

The raging COVID-19 pandemic, the California wildfires, the political scene, the poverty, the racial uprisings, the stay-at-home mandates, the strife...

When the Washington Post recently asked its readers to describe 2020 in one word, more than 2000 responded.  These  three words tumbled out the most: "exhausting," "lost" and "chaotic."  Readers also defined 2020 as "surreal," "relentless," "fallow," "limbo," "heartbreaking," "nightmare," "broken dreams," "stifling," "dumpster fire," and simply "ugh!"

"Ugh?" That's right. We never knew what was coming at us next.

At times it seemed as if we were the prey, trying to escape hundreds of hungry, circling predators.

We remember this encounter last summer between a praying mantis, a female Mantis religiosa, and a Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae, on a fenceline bordering our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.  Here's the mantis, lying in wait by the passionflower vine, ready to ambush any "suitable prey" that comes within her reach. Along comes a Gulf Fritillary, which the mantis defined as "quite suitable."

The mantis pounced, but couldn't wrap its spiked forelegs around the butterfly. The mantis finally settled for a caterpillar. 

So, as we end the year 2020, the key word should be "escape."  Like the butterfly, we need to be find our way out of the clutches of a cunning predator, one cunning predator at a time.

Here's hoping for a Happy New Year!