Valerean

Now that it's midsummer it's time to start taking a flashlight with me when I take the dogs out for their final walk of the night. That's because you can't see these guys unless you shine a light on their webs (or walk through them.) I appreciate the orb weavers who spin their nocturnal webs after sunset, and tear them down before dawn. They eat a lot of bugs, and otherwise do no harm. Their webs can be over 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, however, and pop up in the oddest places (like this one, right outside the front porch.) That's why I take a flashlight with me. :)

Back in April we discovered a fox den on one side of our property had at least one baby kit inside. This is the second time foxes have dug a den near our house; the best thing to do is just leave them alone and not let the dogs off their leashes. I was able to get a few shots of this one kit by using my zoom on the camera while standing on the front porch. Baby is very cute. :)

Last month I went out one morning to walk the dogs. Usually I cut across our front yard to get to the road, but fortunately this morning I was paying attention to my surroundings. Do you see what I saw? Yep. Spider web. It may seem small, but the anchoring threads stretched out for ten feet from top to bottom. I did not get close enough to get a decent shot of the spider, but from the spikes around its body I'll guess it was a crab spider . They are venomous, but their tiny bite is pretty harmless (like a bee sting.) You can see how tiny it is here in the cropped version of the previous pic. It's a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. I did not mess with it. All spiders are enormously helpful in controlling the local pest population. I am going to keep an eye out every morning when I walk the dogs, though. :)

During my late summer walks with the pups I discovered a new neighbor living in one of the trees along my route. I don't think anyone else noticed her because no one ever looks up like me (I do this constantly, too. You never know what's going on above your head otherwise.) She had built her own beautiful house and was thriving there, probably because no one had noticed her. Here's a somewhat fuzzy close up of my new neighbor. She's a golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila clavipes), also known as a banana spider here in Florida. Her web really does look golden in the sunlight -- I just couldn't get a shot of it. She's a wonderful web spinner, and I look forward to seeing her every morning.

Bianca, my rescued moth, died three days after I found her. Seems that she was at the end of her life. She didn't lay any eggs in the little habitat I made for her, so I placed the few she did on the leaf I found with her in a safe spot in the yard. As far as we know insects don't have feelings, but I think if she did Bianca would be glad I picked her up and brought her home. No living creature wants to die alone in the cold and wet on the side of the road, crushed by a passing car or a careless foot. Actually most of the ways insects die are pretty horrible, so maybe it's best she couldn't be afraid. Anyway. I am glad I got a chance to help her, not only because she got more time, but because it served as Zen revenge for what was done to me. One more wrong in my life set right.

My rescued moth did not pass away overnight after I rescued her last month, although I knew she didn't have long to live. Healthy Virginian tiger moths only live for a week or two. To put that into comparitive terms, one day of a moth's life is equal to about five to ten years of life for the average human being. She's spending the end of her life resting and sunning herself in peace, protected on the back porch. Because it was getting cold at night I made a little habitat for her so I could bring her inside. All this for a moth I found on the road. That's crazy, right? Only something very similar happened to me some years ago. I was rendered helpless by a vertigo attack while alone on the side of a road; I literally couldn't stand up or speak coherently. A young couple pretending to help stayed with me until I passed out, at which point they robbed me of $26.00 and left me there. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life...

Last month I was walking the dogs on a chilly morning and noticed a small white moth on the road. It wasn't moving, and we'd just had two days of rain storms, so I figured it was deceased. A passing car would probably crush it where it was, and I'd never seen a moth like it. So I picked up the leaf it was clinging to and carried it home with me so I could take pics and see if I could identify it. Yes, I am weird. Only right before I reached home the moth started moving. The moth was still alive, and it had been laying eggs on that leaf before it fell to the ground. That amazed me, and made me feel very good for rescuing it (even though I thought it was dead.) I carried the moth and the eggs to a warm spot on my back porch, and left them there in the sun. When I looked up white moths with those markings, I determined that it's a Spilosoma Virginica, or a Virginian Tiger moth.

The primary reason my guy inspects our property before mowing it each time are the critters he sometimes finds hiding in the grass. This is a baby gopher tortoise. It's not a newborn but it's not very old; it's about the same size it would be after hatching. These tortoises are endangered, and we have two of their burrows on our property, so we're always on the lookout for them. I just moved one out of the road the other day so it wouldn't get hit by a car. This one seems very early (hatching typically starts around August.) It's also illegal to keep these guys as pets without a permit (not that we need another pet.) So we relocated him near the one recently active burrow on our property. Never a dull moment around here. :)

Some new cows have moved onto the property behind ours; they come to the fence now when they hear the puppies barking as they run around the yard. The smallest dark brown calf skittered away when I went to say hi and take some shots, but this bigger red guy stayed and posed for me. Of course we never attempt to pet or touch the cows next door, as they can get scared or aggressive, and there's only a couple strands of wire between us and them. Since her udders are full I think the spotted white cow might be the dark brown calf's mother.

We stopped by an outdoor animal rescue fundraiser event to see if they had any pups there available for adoption, but they were just offering cats. They brought some other animals for the kids to see, and I had to snap some pics. I didn't get too near the horse, ha.

Thanksgiving was a bit weird this year, but a few things happened that were interesting. The night before as I was baking pie and prepping for everything else I also finished a book I've been reading since the pandemic began: Very well-written and information dense, sometimes a tad bit stodgy, and constantly surprising. Because the author is very smart and not especially interested in catering to the reader, probably not for anyone but an unwavering history buff like me. It's a bit like auditing a college class on Scottish influence on the rest of the world, particularly America. And speaking of pie: Behold the sugar pumpkin we had to go to six different markets before we could find it. Everyone at the first five markets looked at me as if I were crazy when I asked for one. One young clerk didn't know you could use an actual pumpkin to make fresh pumpkin pie. Ah, youth. You're going to starve when my generation dies. While I was cooking Edward called m...

Last night my guy asked me if I wanted to take a walk down by the lake. I refused at first, but then I changed my mind. I'm not getting enough exercise, and I knew we could both use a break outdoors. So we went, and I had the most amazing time, starting with meeting these two young men and their pets on our way to the lakefront park. I have never seen anyone walking a leashed lizard, but he was a friendly guy. The littler one was so cute, too. :) Then the sun began to set, and lit up the horizon in tangerine and gold fire. I was able to get a shot of a seaplane coming in for a landing and a boat against the sunset, too. Most of the time we were watching we had this lovely creature right beside us, too, and we all enjoyed the moment. Best afternoon I've had in a long time.