utenzi

I didn't feel like waiting until December. The two pictures here were taken last Saturday. I was hiking in the Cabe lands area of Eno Park, near the quarry. Both pictures feature distant relatives of ours. One an insect the other a spider. While the two are both in the phylum Arthropoda, they're in different classes (Insecta and Arachnida). The hornet pictured there on the left was crawling on my leg after I put it there. I found it on a rock. I had it in my hand for a while but every time I tried to take a picture of it, it fell off my hand and back onto my leg. The hornets movements felt kinda funny because the wings never stopped moving and that created a slight tickling sensation. Because of the cool temperatures, the poor thing was moving a mite sluggishly so it was early to pick it up. But not so easy to get it to stay put. I had an eye exam yesterday morning. I really hate those pupil dilation drops. It was a rainy overcast day so the sunlight didn't bother me but t...

When I took this picture I didn't even see the spider. I selected for just the spider in Photoshop and made it a little darker so it would show up better in the picture. The real spider is almost exactly the same color as the plant. It was freaky when I uploaded the pictures to my computer and saw the spider engaged with the bee. I thought "Where the hell did that come from?"

I went on a hike yesterday afternoon. I was accompanied by Julie and her daughter. That's them over on the left while crossing a hanging bridge. I'll tell you, that type of bridge sure does bounce a lot! It was a nice hike though a bit short since 10 year olds don't like to go as far as adults do. They drink a lot of water too. I managed to salvage several souvenirs from the trip. Two of them I found last night, and the third tick wasn't discovered until I got back from making a brief run into the lab this morning. The two last night were pretty big and easy to see--adult ticks--but that one today was a very little stinker, nymph stage I guess, and I didn't find that one until it was nice and full of my blood. Damn arachnids! Now my legs are so itchy that it's quite annoying. The picture below is a friend we found on the way back. While we didn't stay and visit long it was nice to meet her. She didn't seem to share my sentiments tho and just scurried of...