Nature Calling

Thinking back on the weekend and my evening walk to the beach with Patrick, I can't believe that we stopped to slip our noses into any variety of rosebuds along the way and came away with disappointing results nearly every time...but never thought to stop for a sniff at the pink roses in the front yard here at the Nest, which are quite fragrant.

Java and Birdie have both posted about insects recently, and they reminded me that I've had a few encounters of the bug and insect variety in the past week or so, which I've been remiss about sharing with you. I've uploaded each one of the following to BugGuide.net in hopes of learning more about each of these...and as always, I'll try to update as information warrants.

As we began the painting project in the dining room on Saturday, we discovered two of three of this kind of spider. This one, I'd say was maybe almost the size of a quarter...but it's possible it's grown larger in my memory, too.

Each one I managed to coax into a plastic cup for transport outside, where they were tossed gently off the deck, once I'd checked to be sure no Miss Muffet sat below.




This nasty lookin' little buggy is, of course, an earwig. They always give me the creeps, though they are, apparently, mostly harmless.



This jumpy little spider dude lives in my car, or at least that's where we recently encountered one another. He seems to enjoy running around on the ceiling in my Saturn.

I'm wondering how jumpy I should feel about him being in there, since he seems to be good at hopping and jumping, himself, darting back and forth overhead.


I'm not sure what this gangly thing is. Of course, I see them every year, are they some kind of mayfly or midge or something. It was a couple inches in length, at least, and we crossed paths a while back, the night I painted the bedroom Cape Cod Gray.

I was a little concerned for its welfare, as I hadn't discovered it until after I'd begun painting, but it managed to stay clear of the wet paint, but was never far away from wherever I was working as I made my way around the room.

Of course, these encounters with Mother Nature are all pretty harmless. My friend Heidi writes me this evening from Texas:

"you know we had a little dust up here right? Ike? Or did the news not cover it so much because Bush is from here and it wasn’t Katrina? Or was it? Have a look. We are about 80 miles away from Galveston and we still have neighbors waiting for power. Some did get flooding and some more got trees though their houses...the mosquitoes down there are the size of your hand and outnumber the people about a thousand to one!"

And it occurred to me that I really haven't been hearing very much about the wrath of Hurricane Ike. I mean, I watched the CNN coverage when the storm hit, but I haven't been in the loop about much of the aftermath...and I'm not sure if that's just me being off the grid as far as TV what with the unsettled nature of Life just lately...or if it really isn't getting much coverage because of the idiocy of Sarah Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate or the bail-out of the collapsing Wall Street...which I certainly HAVE been hearing enough about.

And so in case I'm not the only person out of the loop on this one, here's the link Heidi sent along to some of the absolutely amazing and awesome photos coming from Galveston and Houston in the wake of this powerful storm.

Kinda makes an itsy-bitsy spider not seem like such a big deal, you know?