the summer yard part 2 – the critter version

The frogs and toads are quite noisy with their singing at night since all this rain.

Saturday I looked up, or down as the case may be, to see this pretty green ribbon snake...in the house. It seemed to have trouble getting traction on the vinyl floor and I can't imagine how it got all the way across the room from the door without me being aware of it but it did. I got my back scratcher, the nearest long handled thing, and gently herded it back out the door. It was about 18” long and not even as big around as my pinky finger.

I've seen some swallowtail butterflies in the yard and some little brown skippers and this tiny little hairstreak. It's true color is grayer than this.

I watched while this young squirrel sniffed around and then dug up a pecan and started eating it.

Big Mama hanging out.

Spider webs are everywhere. In this part of the yard I quit counting at 12.

A young banana spider with her mate,

these little green spiders with their neon orange spots,

and shield back spiders which I couldn't get an in focus picture of.

Not sure what this is but I thought it was a cool picture even if it is out of focus. Maybe a shield back spider with it's egg case seen from underneath.

I'm not sure what kind of egg case this is, my best guess from searching images is a jumping spider egg case.

Wasps tending their nest under the eave. Since wasps are only aggressive when they feel threatened I generally leave these pollinators alone unless they want to build their nest somewhere inconvenient for me and then I just wait til no one is home and knock it down.

Marc called me out to see this wasp and a wolf spider battling it out. By the time I got out there the wolf spider was dead and the wasp was dragging it across the yard.

no, really, I'm good

I'm amazed that so many people seem to be worried about me since the election and I admit that most of my FB posts since have been in-your-face political but really, my blood pressure is fine, I'm not on the verge of stroking out, and I still find joy in my daily life. I am still avoiding all political conversations with people I don't know well because support for Trump is still a deal killer and if any of the people I encounter on a daily basis and enjoy chatting with support him, I just don't want to know. And this is not about my candidate losing. This is about a basic moral foundation or rather the lack of one. Regardless of the lies he promised, if you support a racist bigot who has spent his entire career cheating and ruining anyone who opposes him, an admitted sexual predator who mocked a disabled person and who acts like a third grader, a man who stands by this country's main opponent against his own government, constitution, and citizens whom he called his enemies, then there is something seriously wrong with you. I will continue my in-your-face political posts and blog entries because this is something that should never become normalized and it's looking like it could even get disastrous but I am trying to temper them with more art and beauty.

So, I'm back to work, working on a few new models for the critter show at Kittrell/Riffkind Gallery in Dallas in February, the first of the three shows we have been invited to participate in there this year. I'm trying to get these done by the end of the week. The first is this hibiscus flower with bumblebee.

It's turning cold again after our week of spring-like weather and in fact is going to get really cold this weekend, down in the 20s so I'll be bringing the few plants in again that I trundle out when the weather is good, plus some others that can tolerate low 30s but not 20s. The roses and morning glory bush and confederate rose have really liked the warm weather and responded by sending out all kinds of new growth. I kept telling them it was far too early and now they are about to get a hard lesson.

And this poor sulfur.

The baby spiders are still hanging out in their protective web. Later that same day I saw they had come together in a single round mass. I've been keeping watch and sometimes they are spread out and sometimes clustered together in one or two balls. If you jostle the twigs trying to get a picture of them clustered together though, they will spread out.

That's my wander for today and I need to get started.

epic battle

As I mentioned, last Tuesday dawned foggy and drippy. At the far end of the barn, a spider had built a large web and it was festooned with pearls.

Later in the day I noticed that she had removed the web and this morning, while I was out surveying the Big Back Yard, I saw she had rebuilt her web in the same spot. When I got closer, this is what I saw.

I witnessed an epic battle between a wasp and a spider. A wasp was caught in the web and while the spider was trying valiantly to secure it, the wasp was trying desperately to sting the spider while struggling to get free. The wasp eventually broke free and flew over to the dewberry to rest and clean bits of sticky web from it's legs and antennae.

The spider climbed back up in the header of the barn door to wait for another chance at dinner.

short stories 15

Pecans

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my assessment of the end of the pecan harvest. They aren't raining down but they are falling fairly steadily. I picked up a good gallon's worth between yesterday evening and today mid-morning. We have a slight breeze this morning and the trees' leaves were steadily drifting down as I was out there. So far I have shelled 4.3 pounds of nuts. That's the post shelling weight. This is my evening activity and also on Saturdays while I work at the antique store.

Spider

One morning last week, Marc called me out to see a spider web that was being lit up by the morning sun. Usually, spiders weave their webs in the evening and take them down during the morning. Apparently not the shield spiders as this little lady was busy spinning her web. She was putting it up right in one of my paths and so during the day as I went back and forth, I made a conscious effort to avoid crashing through it. I had some idea about taking another picture later in the day. Early afternoon, distracted by something, I crashed right through it.

Chandelier

before

I finally started cleaning the Dresden porcelain chandelier, a massive chore so I try to do a little every day. (and by that I mean I worked on it last Thursday and not a day since.) It will take an entire giant box of cotton swabs...or two. I don't know if you can tell how really dusty/dirty this thing is.

after

Trees

These two beauties are on my main artery between my house and the Square downtown. These are the two biggest specimens of these I have ever seen. The raintree is gorgeous and mine is puny in comparison but I'm glad this one is not in my yard because I swear every seed in every pod sprouts if it hits the ground. I'm already pulling up raintrees everywhere in the yard all year long. And this confederate rose is enormous! That's a carport underneath it on the left. It must never freeze back, being in a protected spot and they must never cut it back.

Work

I have so many things on my to-do list that I can't seem to pick any one thing. I need to work on the flower beds and plant stuff and start on the raised beds for next spring's garden. I want to work outside but it is still just so hot out there in the sun that I quickly abandon any attempt. I need to organize waxes and start making molds and casting stuff for the annual open house the first weekend in December (and it's probably already too late for that) and the show at the gallery in Florida next spring. And, I have two small proposals to write for commission work besides actually getting in the shop and finishing the commission we have.  

Sunset

Last night's sunset after a beautiful cloudless day.

jeweled weavings

The spider is one of my totems and courtesy of Spider Woman, the Navaho goddess, I learned a very valuable lesson some years ago.

When we first looked at the country house that June, there were huge webs all over the property with golden orb weavers on them. I had recently completed the piece Boxed Lunch which featured a golden orb weaver so we took it as a sign and bought the place.

The following year we had a few of the giant webs and golden orb weavers and after that, none. I guess there is too much activity around here now for them and so they build their webs elsewhere.

However, we have many other spiders that decorate the place with their weavings. They were very busy last night as this morning there were webs all over the yard glistening with dew.

viney shrubby thing with ants

I have a small shrub sort of thing in my yard. Or maybe a medium shrub thing. They can get tall actually if they like where they are and we have mild summers. I had one in Houston that was planted at the base of the light pole. It got so tall that the ends quit being branches and turned into vine that was starting to twist ever higher up into the wires so I had to cut it back.

I always thought it was called morning glory bush because the flowers looked like beautiful pinky purple morning glories. It was quite a surprise to see it do that. The other thing I find weird is that the ants love it. And not just one kind of ant. I think I saw three kinds of ants on it.

There were the big tree ants, a medium sized ant that was sort of honey colored with a big abdomen looked like it was full of fluid, and then some very small ants. And they all moved at about the speed of light.

It was like watching one of those movies that speeds up the film.

It was hit or miss with the pictures.

It's hard to tell how many there really were because every time I would move in with the camera, they would all scurry off.

I wandered over to the small pond. The big garden orb weaver still has her web set up there between the althea and the plumeria. The small pond, with it's lily pads, gets a lot of traffic from wasps, bees, dragonflies, and the like. You can see she has herself a dragonfly now.

Across the gate, growing on the old clothesline pole is the moonflower. I was late getting it planted and it is late blooming. It's had about 4 or 5 flowers already but I can't seem to remember to go out at dusk and look. By the time I am up in the morning, which isn't that late, they have already closed up. So this is how I have seen them this year...the possibility of moonflower.

my fight or flight has been active all day

A few pics from around the yard while I fret over getting started on this big job.

I spied these strange little spores? eggs? coming off the stem of my moonflower vine. They are actually only about 3/16” long. I have no idea what they are.

The anoles and geckos have started to hatch and I spied this little guy on one of the azaleas. It couldn't have been more than an inch from the tip of its nose to it hind legs.

The morning glory bush finally started blooming. True to its name, the flowers open in the morning and close by noon.

The orb weaver is still hanging out in the same spot though it does reposition the web now and then.

I have several clumps of these swamp lilies that I transplanted from the Houston house but this is the only one that blooms so far.

We finally got our deposit on Aug. 6 and have made some progress towards getting the rented shop ready. I had initially told them that we would need at least two weeks once we got our deposit to get the place ready. Essentially, we have to start from scratch with tables and a temporary sandblast booth and the air compressor and air delivery system. We've made some progress but here at the end of the two weeks we still have not had them deliver the glass.

Part of the problem is that when I laid out the time period, we had a clear calendar. So of course, the deposit came in the worst possible month and the worst possible timing. Because we don't have a clear calendar for the month of August.

Someone beat them to the punch as far as deposits go so we have had to work on that job and I also, weeks before we got funded, agreed to dog sit for my sister while she goes to visit her stepson and his family the 22 – 28. Realistically, it's going to be the end of the month before we can schedule them to bring the glass. Perhaps the beginning of next week at the earliest. But after that, we should be on track.