How did I get to be sideways!

Foolish human ! are you going to turn me on my head next! I was being nice letting you photograph me and you do this! can't you humans do anything right? And by the way - you could do a better job of taking care of the planet too!

We spent the day at my 90 yo uncle's in the wilds of Pennsylvania . Well , not really the wilds. He lives on the top of a mountain near a small town and a state park. Across the road is a field with meadowlarks in the spring. Down the road on the wires there were two kestrels who would fly over the former horse pasture and hunt. A mixed flock of swallows - kingbirds , barn and northern rough wings were bugging over the fields. 
As I was pulling weeds in the shrub bed in front of his house this little guy (well  actually a pretty good size for a praying mantis) ran (really crawled out pretty slowly ) of the patch of crab grass I was working on.He was very accommodating and let me get several photos before he made his way further into the lawn. I spotted him later after all the weeding was over jumping into the lower branches of the weigela. I am really glad I was pulling the grass out by hand instead of weed whacking it  which was my uncles suggestion ! Unfortunately I had to flip the photo on its side to get it into BLIP. I had no idea a praying mantis would be so upset about the angle of the photo!