Neat Mosquito

Some interesting critters we came across in the garden yesterday morning. An amazing example of Bird's Nest Fungus that I would've missed entirely if I hadn't been weeding intently. The cups were tiny, about a quarter inch each. They're so cool, I wonder why nature thought this would be a good form for this fungus to take.

Our raspberries have about taken over. They've grown so far you have to climb over the grapevines to reach the back side of the bushes. It was fun to pick them, but in an odd way I think I like weeding more. I reached for one berry and encountered a crab spider. I decided it could keep that berry and I'd move onto the next cluster.

Oh what hardship!

I had a bunch of photos on my camera to post, but something happened to my memory card and it fried. I got a new card cheap, but alas lost all the pictures :( If only I could remember what the photos were of, I'd have a chance at retaking them.

The house is still wonderful, and I wanted to share the one photo that made it onto my computer before my camera blitzed. People keep asking me what my commute is like, now that we moved away. It takes me half an hour to drive now, and this is the road I take. Just awful, isn't it? This is about the level of traffic I normally see. The only negative is that the speed limit fluctuates between 60 to 45 when it goes by towns, but everyone drives the speed limit and no one fusses when you suddenly drop to 45. The mountains do rise up more, but with all the trees it was hard to get a clean shot.

On another note, D brought in the mail and said there was a black widow in the mailbox! I'm not happy to hear this. I know we're pretty much in the country and have an excessive amount of bugs and critters, but I don't want to worry about getting a painful poisonous spider bite just checking the mail or moving a piece of wood in the yard :(

Sign me up!

Reading another blog (CrazyAuntPurl's) she had a post that I just had to share a bit of. She was taking a walk in the evening and met a woman walking a cloudpuff of a dog while carrying a large glass of wine. I, like C.A.P., think this sounds like a fabulous idea that would be best shared with friends. Much better than just sitting at home drinking a glass of wine, and definitely adds a new level of enjoyment to walking the dog. Now I need to find a friend to join me in this endeavor, both for the company, conversation, and a free hand since I have 2 dogs. Hmm...maybe I'm just daydreaming and this can't really be part of my life. Taking my dogs on a walk is a bit of a euphamism, since I always wear my running shoes and tend to let them go at the pace they want rather than continually yanking back to keep them in a sedate stroll. If I tried to carry a glass of wine it'd have to be in a sippy cup.

Update: I decided I was going to get a shoulder/arm workout and truly force the dogs to walk at a briskly sedate pace, NOT running. They both pull with relatively even force, and except for the downhills it works ok. But the real reason for this was to start training them not to pull while we walk, so that one day I can go on the leisurely after-dinner walks I remember as a kid. A bag of treats, the entire length of the neighborhood, and innumerable voice commands, fencepost-stops, and yanks finally got them walking like civilized dogs for a while. And it seemed to tire them out pretty well, which really is the goal.