Macro Monday

I've been absent a bit lately.
Our whole family has been travelling abroad for the last two weeks.

NOT!
Actually, I have hardly left Shakerag. And what's more, I have hardly left the house! It's just been too hot and humid to do anything.
So, no blogging, no photo-taking, no nuthin'.

Yesterday, I braved the heat, humidity, and ticks to take a walk in the woods.

A very small toad crossed my path. He was about half an inch long.



Yes, I irritated him.


He really didn't seem that bothered by the flash. I didn't like the way it turned out with the flash,
but the light was low enough almost all my flash-less shots were blurry.
It was my looking at him that he seemed to object to most.

Mushrooms, on the other hand, don't mind me bothering them at all.
These were even smaller than the toad.

It was humid enough that my glasses fogged up on me several times. I came in covered in sweat and teeny ticks.
But it really was nice to get out into the woods again.
It was especially nice after a shower.

Happy Monday!

I'm linking to Macro Monday at Lisa's Chaos.
Stop by and see what macros you can see today!
-Susan

Macro Monday

Thanksgiving week is upon us. That's both wonderful and slightly stressful. I have approximately 1.3 million things to get done before Thursday.
I love cooking and baking, but the tasks are a bit overwhelming.
Perhaps an extra cup of coffee is in order today.
I do hope to get a chance to post again later in the week, but I make no guarantees.

These photos were taken the other day when it was so warm. But when I looked at them, my first thought was Christmas. These are the berries from my dogwood tree in my front yard.

These are linked up with Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos.

Macro Friday

I seem to be getting back into the swing of things as far as blogging goes. Today's photos are also from our trip to Land Between the Lakes. As usual, many shots were in macro anyway, so finding fodder for today's post was easy. Picking an entry is considerably harder. Also, as usual, click on any photos for a closer look.

The water was really low since it's was soooo dry all summer. I assume that low water is why there was such an abundance of mussel shells. This one looked like a treasure chest to me. Yes, the treasure is rocks, but I like rocks.


I have no idea what this plant was. The seed pods looked like morning glories, but the leaves remind me of a weed we used to call potato vine.

I don't know what these flowers are either, but these were all over on the rocky beach. Does anyone know?

Here's another unknown flower.


At least I know this one is a bumble bee. He was moving slowly, but still moving.
It was in the lower sixties. You can see more evidence of how dry it's been.

Not everything I shot was in macro. Here's a sampling of the rest.


The beach had several small caves carved by the waves at some time when the water was much higher than it was this week.

There were plenty of White-tailed Deer out.
It was almost like driving home from town, but with less traffic.
Kentucky sure is a deer-y state.

Visit blogging from bolivia to link up your own Macro Friday post!

-Susan

Black and White Wednesday

I'm sorry I've been absent so much lately, but as predicted, the baby did finally arrive! She's healthy and beautiful and amazingly sweet. I'm going back to see her (and her parents) as soon as I can. Aren't babies wonderful?! It's unreal to me to realize that my little guy was nearly that small this time last year.

Anyway, I thought I'd get back in the swing of blogging by joining
The Long Road to China for Black and White Wednesday. How wonderful for Lisa to finally get to be with her daughter!

Here is one of my first "babies." This is my birthday beagle, Hardy. He's one of the sweetest dogs ever. And for some reason, he nearly always smells like Fritos.
Good dog.

-Susan

miscellany monday and No Mom Talk Monday

Well, as is my typical Monday routine, I stopped by One Mom's Perfect Imperfection this morning. I'm drinking coffee and trying to wake up enough to write my Miscellany Monday post. And what do I find, but a new Monday meme! Click No Mom Talk Monday to check it out. I think I'm up for the challenge. Like Courtney @OMPI, I think I'll combine it with Carissa's Miscellany Monday . So, without any mention of my precious children, here we go:

1. Blogger is irritating. I was attempting to begin this post and “service unavailable” was their response. I've been seeing that more lately. Argh!

2. I need a new hard drive. I'm afraid my little picture-taking hobby is starting to take it's toll. I have less than two gigs free and I haven't downloaded the weekend's pictures yet. Yikes!

3. I hate deleting pictures. Even bad and blurry ones. Anyone else? I think number two may be related to number three.
   

4. For the few months, I have been reading a “new” author. New to me at any rate. I had never read mysteries before this year. I feel this blog is the perfect venue for expressing myself. I am in love with Agatha Christie. There. I said it. I feel better. If any of you are slightly fond of that genre, please try her. I doubt you will be disappointed. Try Murder on the Orient Express or And Then There Were None. There is something wonderful about "discovering" an author who has written 80+ books.
   

5. I'm trying to encourage Batman to start blogging. I think he'd enjoy it. I also know that he would learn the computer aspects really quickly and then he could help me. I hope he doesn't mind my dual motive.

6. I'm glad autumn weather is finally here. One of my favorite things to do this time of year, is sit on the deck and drink coffee. I got to do this on Saturday. Maybe tomorrow. This kind of weather also makes me what to bake and make chili.

That's enough for one day. I'm looking forward to a great week.
I hope you are, too!
-Susan

Macro Friday

I forgot to prepare a post for today. Doh! I'm going for a rare trip to an actual city today, so I've been a bit distracted. So, here are a few shots from this past week with no further preamble. As always, the first is my entry in Macro Friday. And also, as always, you can click on any picture for a closer look.

I finally had a Monarch Butterfly stop by my deck!

Above is the Viceroy for comparison.

Another shot of the Monarch.

Visit blogging from bolivia to link up your own Macro Friday post.


Have a great weekend!

-Susan

Macro Friday

Well, it's been a busy, but good week here in Shakerag. I have started borrowing my mom's camera when she comes to visit. It's another Canon point and shoot, like mine, but much nicer. It's a Power Shot A1100IS. So, I've taken a lot of pictures this week- some with my camera, some with Mom's. (Thanks, Mom!) Choosing an entry for this week's Macro Friday has been challenging because there are a lot from which to choose.

I finally decided on this photo of a Praying Mantis in my strawberry bed.

One evening, while watering my strawberries, apparently I watered the Praying Mantis, too. He or she was rather large, perhaps six inches.



It was a good evening for finding things. After the strawberries, I gave my roses a drink. Then I saw it. There was something large crawling around under the rosebush. Not only was it scary looking, after some internet research, I determined that it is actually venomous! This is a caterpillar of an Io Moth. Needless to say, I did not touch it.


If you look very closely, you can see black on the tips of some of his bristles. That's one of the features used to identify this as the Io Moth Caterpillar.



Watering the following morning also brought out some critters. "My" fence lizard was there. I thought he looked larger than I remembered. Then I noticed the evidence of his last molt. It's nice to be right, at least occasionally.


Look closely on his tail near his body. See? Okay click on the photo, then look. Looks like a spot is scalier than the rest of the fence lizard.



Then I noticed a Walking Stick. I don't see these or Praying Mantises very often.
It was pretty neat seeing the two so near each other both in time and place.

Then I noticed a bit of blue in my big bucket 'o sawdust.


It's a Five-lined Skink. We always called the Blue-tailed Skinks.
I love the electric blue of the tail!


Gosh, I didn't even mention all the butterflies I saw this week!
Well, that's a post for another day.

Thanks to Laura from
blogging from bolivia
for for hosting such a cool blog hop!
Hop on over to link up to your own Macro Friday post.

Hope you enjoyed your visit to virtual Shakerag!

-Susan

miscellany monday

I'm feeling quite random this morning, so I thought I'd play along.

(1) I need to do better about eating breakfast in a timely manner. I wake up hungry, but the kids get up when I do, so it's difficult to feed myself. A brilliant friend of mine recently told me that if it's five hours after you wake up, it's not really breakfast. Thanks, Gini!

(2) I'm dying to do some sewing. There are many projects I'm anxious to start. Another quilt, a skirt for me, a dress for my niece, another mei tai baby carrier or two. . . Maybe today is the day!

(3) The start of the week always gets me excited about the possibilities. I know most people moan about Monday's, but I don't usually. I'm a SAHM, and I love my job!

(4) The hummingbirds have been reckless and abundant around here lately. If I can ever get a decent picture of them, I'll post it.

(5) Typing is significantly more complicated with a baby in your lap "helping."
I know I'm not alone in this observation.

(6) In a town the size of mine, it's always wise to assume when going to Walmart that you will, in fact, run into about half a dozen people that you both know and haven't seen in 8-25 years. It happens. Often. Ask me how I know. Maybe next time, I'll clean up a bit after housecleaning before Wal-marting.



Have a great week, and don't forget to check out lowercase letters and link up your own random Monday thoughts!



-Susan

Macro Friday

It seems all my photography lately has been in macro mode. I guess because I'm near sighted, looking at things very closely is just natural to me.

The first photo below is my entry for
blogging from bolivia's Macro Friday.
The rest are just for fun. Hope you enjoy!

This Eastern Pondhawk was really posing for me.



Above is a Common Buckeye Butterfly.


Here is another Buckeye with a Black-and-yellow Garden Spider. I know I posted a similar photo in B&W, but I like this one better.



This is an action shot, the ant was really moving!



What could be better than a Black-eyed Susan and a discarded Cicada skin?



Above and below is the lovely Hyancinth Bean Vine.



Stinkerbaby up close and personal.

Have a great weekend!
-Susan

Macro Friday

Well, here we are again at the end of another week. I don't know what excitement the weekend holds for us, but I'm looking forward to it. Any day with Batman home is a good day! Speaking of Batman, here is my entry for Macro Friday:


Looks a bit like the more famous Batman to me. Anyone know what it is?


Here's another view.


And here's a big hint.


And another hint.

Many thanks to Laura from Blogging from Bolivia for getting all of our collective creative juices flowing!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

-Susan

Okay, here's the answer to my little question above:
It's a chrysalis (cocoon) of a black swallow-tail butterfly and caterpillars of the same. They love to eat dill and my friend with the pool had about 40 caterpillars on her dill. They killed her dill, but she and her granddaughter have enjoyed watching the butterfly action!