I was sitting in the carport nursing a beer last week, waiting for the briquets in the Smokey Joe to get to temperature when a tiny baby mantis dashed across a step-ladder I was using as a foot rest. It was my first mantis sighting of the season. And an assuring sign of normalcy in an otherwise abnormal time.

I last saw a mantis last September. It was chewing on a bee. I wondered then if it’d survive long enough to successfully breed. I can’t say that particular one did, but apparently one of ladies of the yard managed to do just that.