LUIS BETANZOS, MEXICAN ARTIST

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My mother-in-law gave us these two paintings (below) that had belonged to her mother. The paintings were signed “Betanzos.”  I did some research to find out about the artist.

Luis Betanzos (Herrara), 1907-1978, is a folk artist from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. A folk artist is a self-taught artist without formal art training and Luis started painting when he was three years old. His father was a teacher and Luis became a grade school teacher. Children were a common subject of his paintings. He also taught classes about his painting techniques at the Academy of San Carlos.

He mostly did a type of painting called “gouache” (pronounced gwash). Gouache is defined by Google dictionary as “a method of painting using opaque pigments ground in water and thickened with a gluelike substance.” If you have an interest in gouache painting compared to watercolor painting, here is a good YouTube video showing the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2CZNPZLRPg

One of Betanzos primary students, Alfredo Guati Rojo, became a famous Mexican painter who worked with watercolors. His paintings are in the National Museum of Watercolors in Mexico City.

Luis Betanzos’ grandson has a collection of many of his grandfather’s paintings which he displays in a house in Cuernavaca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQDYH_zVtEw  (This video is in Spanish)

Betanzos’ grandson has been collecting money through a foundation to build a small museum to house his grandfather’s art, and also to make a documentary and a book about his grandfather’s life.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHK1_ZAJRiE  (This video is in English)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Turkey Day!

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Next week is Thanksgiving. Today, two wild turkeys were strutting across my front yard. One was shy and did not want to be photographed, but the other was a poser.

Wild Turkey

Go Hawk!

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In July, I posted a picture and video of a sick, injured baby hawk that my husband found near our house. We called Iowa Bird Rehab who came to get the hawk. This morning, I was delighted to see on Instagram that the red-tailed hawk is alive and well, and being moved to a different bird sanctuary that specializes in raptors.

Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater

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I had two pumpkins ready to carve for Halloween. I sat them outside and the next day found this:

 

I saw a suspicious looking deer hanging around my yard, but I didn’t know how the deer was eating the pumpkin without knocking it off the ledge. Day # 2:

Many types of animals will eat raw pumpkin. The animals I have seen near my yard include: deer, raccoon, possum, groundhog and squirrel. Day #3:

Can you find the culprit in his photo?

Guilty as charged.

Day#4:

Season of the Sticks

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My daughter sent me a picture of a walking stick bug that was crawling on her window. Walking sticks are common but rarely seen because they live in trees and are camouflaged to look like sticks. There are thousands of species of stick bugs. Most of them live in tropical areas. They “naturally prune” trees. There are two main species in North America that like to eat the leaves of deciduous trees (especially oak, hazelnut, walnut, locusts, and cherry). In North America where the winters are cold, the bugs lay eggs on fallen leaves and then die when winter arrives. The kiddos hatch in the spring and climb the nearest tree. The picture below is Megaphasma (“big ghost”) dentricrus (“tooth leg”). Here is a video that tells more about these bugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dblhygB8inw

Fungus Schmungus #9

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I saw this mushroom growing in the grass on a small lawn of a hotel in Arkansas next to the parking lot. I believe it is a type of Ganoderma or Reishi mushroom. I have two other species of Ganoderma on this blog (Fungus Schmungus #2 and #6). I was not able to identify the species with certainty. There are two photos of this same mushroom on the internet posted on Reddit with one from Nebraska and one from Ohio. These posts also question the species.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mycology/comments/os9ea7/found_in_eastern_nebraska_growing_out_of_a_lawn/

https://www.reddit.com/r/mycology/comments/14t9slv/id_swmo_found_on_the_ground_near_what_i_believe/

Below is a photo of the mushroom which was the size of a small plate and a close-up of its skin.

Ganoderma

Goldfinch Nest

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I was walking our dog, Webster, along the edge of the ballpark under some pine trees. He sniffed at something on the ground that I thought was a baseball with the covering torn off, but when I picked it up and turned it over it was a small bird nest. I did some research to find out what kind of bird makes this kind of nest. Three clues: 1. it was small, three inches by three inches, but bigger than a hummingbird nest which is the size of a quarter 2. it had a perfectly shaped cup, very tidy 3. the nest was mostly made of dried grass but also had thistledown or milkweed fluff weaved in so the nest felt soft and spongy not brittle. I decided this was a goldfinch nest. Here is a nice video about the goldfinch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89zcYdv-mA

 

 

 

 

Mudbugs, Crawdads, Crayfish, Crawfish

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Mudbugs are also known as crawdads, crayfish, and crawfish.  They are edible crustaceans related to shrimp and lobsters. When I was visiting Arkansas recently, it was hot and dry. I ran across a crawdad city in a ditch next to the road. Crawdads often live in water, but also dig burrows in dirt until they reach mud/moisture. They carry the extra mud to the surface making a tall “mud chimney” around the entrance to their burrow.  Here is a video of a crawdad making his burrow: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tech+360+crawfish+digging+hole

There are many ways to catch crawdads. If they are in water, a trap is the easiest way. Here are two different ways to catch crawdads if they are in the burrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGn6jhZ0ZA

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pxAhCU9A358

How to cook a crawdad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuvdyhhfwsM

How to eat a crawdad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdq2wTHsHnY

Fungus Schmungus #8

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I found a bunch of these mushrooms near our yard under a large pine tree. They are called Chicken Fat Mushroom or Suillus Americanus. They always grow near an Eastern White Pine and nowhere else. They are a type of bolete mushroom which has pores on the underside of the cap rather than gills. Boletes are the only group of mushrooms with pores. I have a post of another bolete mushroom called Dryad’s saddle on 5/28/22. Not all boletes are edible, but this one is. Here is a short YouTube video about these mushrooms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GegYQ1x4XN0

 

Suillus americanus

Notice the pine needles.

suillus americanus
Pores on a bolete mushroom

Pores on the underside of a Bolete mushroom