Grasshopper??

A queer fellow and a jolly fellow is the grasshopper…

Braver, heartier, keener, care-free enjoyment of life
I have never seen or heard
in any creature great or small.

The life of this comic, the mountain’s merriest child,
seems to be made up of pure, condensed gaiety…

Nature in him seems to be snapping her fingers
in the face of all earthly dejection and melancholy
with a boyish hip-hip-hurrah.

-John Muir

How’s that for a description?

My greatest hope is that someday, someone has reason to describe me in such a wonderful and funny and passionate way.

Honestly, I am not at all sure this is a grasshopper at all. It clearly has just molted- the close-ups I took are gross, you can actually see through parts of the exoskeleton, it’s like something straight out an alien movie.

So my quasi- educated guess is grasshopper nymph, but possibly a locust of some sort? It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I’m just very pleased to have found a reason to use the Muir grasshopper quote. It puts such a tap in my step today.