August 16, 2007

• A Spider Started It

  I haven’t been moving around much.  It has rained a lot lately.  A couple of days ago, when a heavy downpour hit suddenly, I grabbed an umbrella and ran out to cover the tadpole pans so they wouldn’t overflow.  I wasn’t feeling tiptop before that, was stumbling and fumbling a lot – “sensorimotor deficits.”  Ever since that quick trip – calling it running is wrong, I don’t run – I have had a screaming pain in my hip joint whenever I put weight on my right leg. 
  
  Today, the sun came out again.  On my way to the outhouse early this afternoon, movement and color caught my eye.  A spider with an abdomen as big around as a quarter was dangling about eye-level off the edge of the cabin roof.  I came back in and got my camera, watched the spider go up and down on it’s silken string, gathering the silk as it climbed, adding it to the bundle a few feet above my head, and spinning a new string down to ground level before gathering that one up.  I shot 54 images of it, and saved 11 of them.  Variously lit, from all angles, for a while they can be found in my photo module, and later on in the “Bugs” photo album.

  Since I was already out there, I moseyed over to Tadpole Ranch, took
  the lids off the north forty and the south forty, watched the froglets
  swim around, then headed out to see how the Baby Huey rhubarb is doing
  (big and green).  On the path through the woods, between this shady end
  of the yard and the sunny south edge where the garden plot is, I
  spotted lots of new fungi, and shot a few of them.

  The hip hadn’t stopped hurting, still catches me by surprise tonight when I move it or put weight on it, but the sunshine was too pleasant to miss, so I took off out the cul de sac.  In all, on today’s little walk I captured 104 images.  I uploaded twenty-some choice examples, including a couple of wide shots that show the first hints of fall color, and one picture of a clump of fireweed that has totally bloomed out and started shedding seed.  This is the end of summer.

  As I was coming back toward home, a dragonfly posed for me.  I
  approached the rock where it was resting, and it flew… around me and
  landed again on the same rock.  It did that four times before I got the
  perfect shot of it and moved on.
  
  After I turned the corner and was walking along the edge of the road, looking down at the bunchberries,  I noticed that a lot of them show signs of having been sampled by something — maybe birds, maybe insects.  I have been finding lots of little downy feathers floating in the tadpole pans, suggesting that birds have been bathing there.  I’ve also seen some small seeds, apparently from berries, in the pans.  I don’t think the tadpoles went out and got them, so birds are the suspects there, too.
  
  I was keeping my eyes open for ripe lingonberries, “lowbush cranberries” to Alaskans, but most of them were not ready to eat.  Then I struck it rich:  BLUEBERRIES!  They are too good to pass up when they are right out there by the road and easy to get without a long trek across rough ground.  The handful at right includes a few ripe lowbush I found, a bunch of bunchberries, and some sweet orange things whose name I don’t recall.

  I had eaten a few handfuls of mixed berries and moseyed on toward home when I noticed a thicket of rosebushes with ripe hips.  A couple of mouthfuls of their sweet mushy flesh and I was ready for a tart, juicy, palate cleansing handful of blueberries, so I doubled back and waded through the brush for more blues.  Oh, my!  The berries were more than worth the effort.  YUM!

  It was a pleasant walk, despite the pain.  This is so very much preferable to sitting indoors watching through the window as the seasons change.  What right would I have to miss summertime if I didn’t get out in it while I had it?  

  

  

  • 3:26 am
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