Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Yes, Susan, I do own a camera!

and I took some pictures to prove it!

First, here's a bug I found flying around on our three-season (enclosed) porch a couple of weeks ago:

What the heck is that? He was a big bug--at least two inches long. He's sitting on this weird rock I found in Wooster, MA. (it's silvery and flaky)

Here's a profile of him, with me kinda pissing him off because I held him by the wings so you could see him better (you know how cruel I can be to bugs):

UPDATE! -click for terrifyingly huge- (I think I fixed the click-for-big thing!)Look at him rearing up and trying to bite me with those terrifying jaws! He flew off shortly after this photo was taken. Go figure.

After I took my power walk last night (I was too sleepy in the morning), I grabbed the binocs and camera and ran back out to photograph this little family of mourning doves:

It was really late, and it was kinda sprinkling, so all we have is a silhouette. That's mommy on the left, with two smaller ones huddled down beside her. Daddy (I guess) was on the power line that you can see crossing the bottom of the screen, only out of frame.

I'm also happy to report that I drove a bunch of Eastern meadowlarks positively bonkers last night by playing my fake BirdJam's meadowlark recording! One of them flew right at me and then circled me a couple of times, trying to figure out just what the heck I was and where the sound was coming from. It was incredibly exciting! I didn't even have to play the whole recording before these guys just started "spring of the year"-ing all over the place! It was awesome.

Next, I know you're all dying to know how my little vegetable garden is doing. I took this picture last night after I came back from photographing the MODO family, so it's pretty dark:
In the front, you can see a bunch of what I first thought were carrots but now I realize is probably just Queen Anne's lace. Oops. Behind that are my raspberry plants to the left and right in front of the fence. That tall thing is a volunteer mammoth sunflower (from last year). There are also some volunteer cilantro plants here and there, making the stepping stones a little harder to navigate.

Here are the lettuces--arugula and green leaf (left to right):

This is my first try at arugula--and boy howdy, it's way spicier than the stuff you buy in the store, even the organic stuff. It's pretty strong, but it does add a nice zip to salads.

The cilantro has already gone to flower--this is all volunteer stuff from last year; I didn't even plant one seed; also pictured to the right of the cilantro are my four brocolli plants, a new veggie for me:

I gave Nibble some lettuce (including arugula, which he ate) and a big leaf from one of the brocolli plants, and he was in bunny heaven! Here's a little Pandering: a shot of the Nibble-tocks, to satisfy Fran's Nibsession:

Back to the garden: Here are three little green pepper plants 'California Wonder', with some crookneck yellow squash behind them, and another volunteer sunflower plant behind that:
Again, it's really getting dark by this point, so it's tough to see. There's also a little volunteer cilantro plant in the lower left corner; the cilantro is kinda out-of-control this year. But then my garden is always a little wild. Remember the lettuce tree and the weedy wonderland? The morning glory that took over the world?

Oh, and I realized that I did actually take one photo while atlassing last week with Roana:
This is a little mountain stream near Poe Paddy State Park. There were about a million butterflies flying around in this area, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of them. Sorry!

To finish off, I have two cloud photos I took with my Sony-Ericsson Walkman 580i camera phone. The first one was taken while driving about 75 mph down Rt 220 toward State College:
I dig the sunbeams. This next one is the weirdest-looking cloud/sun combo I've ever seen; it was taken in April, so it was still really cold which might explain the clouds:

That's a birch tree in the lower left corner, with the sun shining through these weird cotton-batting-like clouds. Creepy, huh?

25 comments:

dguzman said...

Why is it that none of my photos do the "click for larger" thing? Do I have something set wrong in my preferences? I really wanted you to see that bug up close!

NCmountainwoman said...

I'm too new to be of help with the pictures. It's hit or miss with me.

I love your garden, sort of a nurture and nature type of thing. So much more fun than the "pristine" gardens of the obsessive folks.

Anonymous said...

The bug says you're a big meanie.
Nibbles says you're not. Burp.

Those are some great photos of your lovely garden. And we've been known to let things go a little wild in the garden, too. MathMan is better about keeping it under control, but I'm noticing a plethora of volunteer tomato plants by the blueberry bushes......

Deb said...

Hi. You have a nice blog here. Thanks for visiting mine. I think your click for larger problem has to do with the number of photos in one post.

In general things are in the lazy days of summer mode but I have really gotten swamped with the self-help stuff which can become its own hamster wheel.

I see you're from Spring Mills. I graduated from BHS a long time ago; not a native-insider just a grad. But I got my writing start in the original CDT high school journalism workshop started by Evelyn Apgar and Jerry Weinstein.

John B. said...

Basically a clickable embedded image should be coded like this:

<a href="url">
<img src="url">
</a>

Your blog is just doing this:

<img src="url">

If your photos aren't clickable, there might be something in the blog or template settings that prevents a link to the larger image from being added. You can hand code the links yourself, but it's a pain and requires some HTML know-how. My blog does it automatically.

Susan Gets Native said...

I knew you'd come through for me, girl.

The bug you are pissing off is an Ant Lion

A beautiful bug who starts out damn FUGly.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

So many pictures!
That last cloud/sky thing belongs on the Twilight Zone!! Creepy!

RG said...

Oh my, what a full blog. Love those volunteers .. I have more of them than new plants .. but hey, you never know what might turn out good! Survival of the fittest, right?

I think maybe your pictures are just only that size you see. When I double click and look at Properties they seem pretty small in space they take up. Try posting a real big picture. Blogger will size it down to fit the blog, but save the big one for expanding when it gets clicked on. (He says, timidly!)

That last picture looks like some radiated spider coming home to take some revenge!

RG said...

Well ... hmmmm. I went way back to the post with the cow in the field, and it opens really big! But it also says, in proerties, that it is a small picture.

Also, in all our comments, our little pictures do not show up .. which they do in other people's blogspot posts. There may be some setting(s) that can be adjusted.

Or .. maybe you really SHOULD leave your camera home .. :<) Reveal your pictures in words!

RG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Bunns said...

He usually does ramble somewhat incoherently at us as well ....

dguzman said...

NCMtnWoman--that's kinda what I feel a garden should be. Those proper "pristine" gardens are nice, I suppose, but why bother? I just try to keep the weeds away from the plants, but the edges of the garden are covered with weeds.

DCup--I didn't mean to hurt him! I just held him a little bit.... Tomatoes and blueberries--yum! My blueberry plants were subsumed by the raspberries and I guess they didn't make it. Dangit.

G's Cottage--thanks for coming by here as well! And a former local to boot. I'm a transplant, only here for the university. That's neat about your history in this area, though. Bellefonte is a lovely little town; I love Tallyrand Park.

John--thank you! I wonder why it's doing that--I didn't change anything, but a couple of months ago I noticed the photos wouldn't do the click-for-huge thing. I'll change the html--I've become somewhat familiar with it. Thanks!

Susan--HOLY CRAP--an ant lion? You mean the kind that starts out in those little snow-cone-shaped holes in the dirt? WOW! I used to love to play with ant lions! I would use a blade of grass to disturb the dirt in their cone-holes and they would come up, thinking they had an ant, and then I would scoop 'em up in my hand to watch them dig around! (Oh dear, I think we're seeing a trend in my treatment of insects....)

Lynne--it was crazy! I took the photo with my cellphone, but it really did look just like that. It was weird.

Rabbits' Guy--I actually changed the setting for avatars (the little pics of us) in comments; I will change it back so you can see your pics. Thanks for the help!

Bunns--now you be nice to your daddy!

dguzman said...

I FIXED IT, I FIXED IT! I went in and changed the Page Element preferences to be like they are for my other blog, and I guess that fixed it! I changed the prefs about "links" (turned them off). I hope that doesn't freak the rest of the blog out! But now you can click on the two bug pix for HUGE AND TERRIFYING.

Fran said...

I am saving that photo on my computer.

Nib-session indeed, I lurve Niblet!

Splotchy said...

Those are some lovely pictures.

I have never heard the term "volunteer" used for a plant. I like it.

dguzman said...

Fran--I'm glad--I put it there just for you!

Splotch--yeah, that's what they call plants that result from last year's seeds/plants. It's a cool name, I think.

John B. said...

I'm glad you got the problem fixed. Lovely insect!

Angry Ballerina said...

I wanna bunny now......
I wanna garden..........

I wanna squish that bug............


I need to link you..........

dguzman said...

John--yeah, and Susan even linked to photos! Ah, the memories.

Angry--I need to link you too! I love your blog! Thanks for coming by! (I'm obviously overcaffeinated and using too many !!!!'s) Bunnies are awesome pets, BTW.

Larry said...

Nasty little critter gave you a tough time, huh, well, I wouldn't want my wings touched either - lol - great photo's - I think that the Meadowlark was dancing with you. Nice garden, I agree that some homegrown lettuces are spicy/pungent tasting. Bunny is cute. Awesome cloud pics; reminds me of those clear balls you touch and then it looks like lightening touching your fingers - what did you do with the bug? (Hmmmmmmm).

Joe said...

Ant lion...I was going to guess some kind of mayfly. Your garden looks wonderful. Everything in ours is nice and green, but late because of our cold spring.

Mary said...

Is it a wood roach? They fly. We had lots of them in Maryland. They rested on outside door frames and scared the h out of us all the time.

You have a lot going on there, Delia. Great photos!

Dr. Zaius said...

More Niblet pictures, please!

nina at Nature Remains. said...

Cool an antlion lacewing!
I've never seen one--as an adult. I had a neat time with the larval stage here:
http://natureremains.blogspot.com/search/label/ant%20lions

though he looks quite fierce.

Anonymous said...

Your bug is an antlion or ant lion, I see it spelled both ways. You may be familiar with it in its larva state when it digs funnel shaped traps in sand to catch ants. We used to call them doodle bugs in Arizona.