Looking to find normal

 or something that might be normal. I imagine people who have lost a loved one go through this also. I found myself this morning just standing in the kitchen area wondering what to do next.

I felt as if I was stuck there. Stuck to the floor with the kitchen sink staring at me. I blinked. I sighed. I wondered, did a few moments go by while I was in 'Stuck Land'?

I shook it off and decided another morning walk would be the right thing to do. I needed to go check the pasture fences even though no mules where in the meadow.

This is one of our morning views. Fog branches trees, a large wild meadow....

I didn't have my zoom lens I use for wildlife with me, but this guy showed up in our meadow. I did crop this hard. The buck is a 10 pointer. I will only admire him with photos. Though I wouldn't mind some venison myself this winter.

Sunrise in the fall is magical. The heavy fog and dew create a magical place for photographers.

My 'friends' the orb spiders are still building nightly webs in the east meadow. I am enjoying walking among them and feel slightly honored to be able to photograph them up close and personal.

I had a lunch date with my MIL's cousin who may be in her late 80's but is no frail flower. She is a force to be reconned with. We often try to meet up at least once a month through the spring to fall months and have lunch together. She is stubborn and strong like ... well myself. She has opinions and insights and is just an amazing woman who is struggling with her husband's Alzheimer's. 

She is an independent cuss just like me. She doesn't speak Bull-it, she speaks her opinions, for that I love her. 

We missed 6 months of lunches but made our date today. She is an elder that I have the utmost respect for. She has lived most of her life with her husband who lived on the road and has an independence streak that would put most elderly ladies to shame.

I see her and I feel comforted. We are comforting souls.

This afternoon I had a Pet Trailer for my bike delivered. I like bike riding and there are several choices of nice flat riding trails within 45 to 60 minutes from my house.

I figured it was NOT fair to Charlie to leave him home alone all day while I went exploring. So I did this....

He isn't too sure about the whole thing, but he likes the treats he finds inside the trailer. 

Charlie is now my soul-sole companion. We can adventure together. We can watch out for each other.

I think I will find out how good my leg muscles are soon after not having much exercise for the past 6 months.

My ex daughter in law sent me a card today and I took her letter and card to heart.

The pain of a loss
Reflects
How deeply our Hearts
Have Loved.

The color yellow

I thought that I'd go with another color. I picked a really difficult one.

Yellow.

This is one of the pumpkins that grew as a volunteer plant in the pasture. It isn't truly yellow, but it is yellow and orange. Maybe orange can be the next color I target.

I chose to go out very early in the morning and look for yellows. This was a very hard task. 
Below is a macro of a yellow cosmos. These cosmos are both bright yellow and tinted orange.

I took a shot of the seeds below. They are so easy to collect and then simply reseed anywhere. 

For years, I wasn't a fan of any yellow flowers. I avoided orange and yellow flowers in my garden but the colors have really grown on me. Next year, I think I'll be adding many more yellows. I'm eyeing marigolds. 

Below is a pumpkin flower.

This one decided to grow in and among my Nasturtiums. So far, this plant has provided us with 3 small white pumpkins. [I gave out as many extras as I could to the little neighbor kids for their fun]

Finding the color yellow got harder as I left the porch and garden areas. I went out to the meadow to see if I could find some Golden Rod.

Most of the Golden Rod was too faded to provide a colorful photo.

But...

The Orb Weavers were Back!

This one was wrapping up her breakfast which was a grasshopper she had captured. When I shifted my position to 'get' a better and closer shot, she left her breakfast and sat still on her web. She didn't drop off the web like others, but waited patiently for me to leave.

The second shot is the first one I took of her, it is a close up of her wrapping up her meal. Does the yellow and orange colors on her count as Yellow?

I don't really love spiders. I do appreciate the work they do. They are absolutely fascinating to watch. When I worked in Security, I recall the nights I spent in the guardhouse watching an Orb Weaver create the most beautiful web. She showed up each night for weeks. 

We called her Charlotte.

The fog and mist were lifting as I headed back towards the house. I saw the box elder showing off some yellow and headed out towards it. The box elders really put out the seeds this year!

I checked the old oak tree and found just one or two leaves that had color. They usually don't change first so I was surprised. The branches must be damaged in some way to produce dying leaves right now.

Sunday promised another HOT day and it produced it. By late afternoon, it was 90 in the shade and even hotter on our porch which gets full sun through the fall and winter.

This last shot was up through the old oak, I was going for a sun star flare and got one.

The yellows were hard! I need to walk up into my neighbor's woods where he girded some maples which are showing off some great colors right now. This week is going to be a hot one. 

Stay cool.

Blistering Hot & Spiders!

This was Sunday's view from the ridgetop. I usually can get a decent shot from different parts of the ridge, but this year, no one on this ridge is growing soy beans. My choices to see the sun rise this year are slim. I have to walk a mile to get an open view of the sky without corn blocking my views.

Our hollow doesn't see the sun for about an hour or so after sunrise. The sun has to come up over the trees on the ridge to shine down on us. In a way I miss places I used to live where I had a fairly clear sight of the horizon. But I'm used to it now after 29 years [this coming weekend].

The humidity and fog are intense in the valleys in the morning. The shot below is from when I drove down to the gas station in Readstown for some milk. It was taken in Infrared that was the camera I had with me. The valley fog from the river was dissipating but it still makes me stop and admire it after all of these years.

Infrared Shot

Before the sun gets into our hollow, I get the chores done and make sure the tanks for the ladies have fresh water. The mules are spending a lot of time down in the Buckthorn Forest where the sun doesn't shine and there always seems to be a bit of air movement.

Our mornings have been like this muggy, foggy, and a very high dew point ---> that leads to the discomfort of being outside. If one's sweat doesn't evaporate, one does not cool off.

I did the smart thing on the hottest of days. I organized and re-organized my files regarding our financial paperwork. I need to get together with my daughter in law and have her teach [or reteach me how to do a spreadsheet]. I could do this at one time, but can't remember how to do it now. I learned over 30 years ago.

I did stuff I normally don't do until the first day of fall. I organized my 'junk' room and cleaned it up again. So I can make another mess.

My early morning walk this morning to check fences revealed that one of the critters was in a spot she wasn't supposed to be in. Tsk, tsk. After some chasing, I got her settled back with the others and moved on to go into the neighbor's large and wild meadow.

This was the view.... 

A huge meadow filled with spider webs from Orb Weavers or Orb Spiders. 

I saw it the day before when I didn't have a camera with me. I couldn't resist climbing through the fence [I'm allowed to hike there whenever I please] and explore.

I found lots of empty webs, and quite a few occupied webs.

The spiders don't bother you if you bump into their web, they just scuttle off into the grasses or bush they built on.

Imagine that they remake or build a new web each day -- or night? How industrious is that?

I used to be so afraid of spiders until I met a 9 year old girl who wanted to become an entomologist. She and I would go around and look at spiders and any other insect we could find together. I started photographing them with her and of course, I found a new and exciting subject to 'shoot'.

This stunning beauty is in one of my wilder flower gardens. I won't go in and pull weeds or anything until she is done for the season. 

I'm going to go out early again tomorrow morning and each morning to try and get glimpses of these beautiful creatures. At least until they are done for the season. 

I find them to be so amazing and so oddly beautiful.

Fence Checking & Weird Stuff

Usually just after sunrise I head out to do a daily fence check. I can walk the meadow admire the changes each season brings. The grasses have seed heads and are waiting to drop them. 

The Queen Anne's Lace is beginning to bloom and the milkweed is just about done blossoming.

If there is a good morning dew or fog, I get to stop and admire my favorite spiders who start to appear in abundance at the end of July through August. Orb spiders.

Orb Spider shadow!!!

If I stand quietly just after dawn along our fence line, I can watch the deer emerge from the woods and cross the meadow to the east of us.

In another few weeks and up until gun season, I'll probably sneak out a few times a week to sit in a tree with my camera and watch for some does and bucks in velvet. It is fun to catch them on the trail cam but even more exciting to watch them in real time.

I collected some Queen Anne's Lace to dry while out walking.

I just love their beautiful patterns.

Down in the valley I found an area that had a curious slime mold growing all over the place. It seemed to grow at the base of little plants and small saplings. Odd, but not so odd because of all the rain and humidity we've had. It makes for perfect growing conditions for slime molds.

One of my favorite slime molds to find is fresh Dog Vomit Slime Mold. AKA: Scrambled Egg Slime Mold or Fuligo septica. It is hard to miss as it is such a bright yellow. The patch was very tiny. It probably only is visible for about 24 hours.

I was SO excited to find this tiny patch!
[I know, I am odd.]

We are coming up on the great months for finding all sorts of cool Fungi and odd things growing in the forest. I can't wait!

Anyway, this was my morning walk. Checking on my mules and checking on the fencing.

Have a great week.

Naturalist Curiosity

How do we love slime molds and fungi? 
Well, I assume not a lot of people like it.

I don't know why insects, slime mold, and fungi fascinate me. Maybe it is because they are part of such an incredibly small world that we never stop to look at.

White Tube Slime 
or
White Footed Slime
or
Honeycomb Coral Slime?

Take your pick. Hopefully I can go back out today and see if this grew at all and that might help ID it.
This slime mold [?] is smaller than a pencil lead.

Who am
I?

I don't know! There are possibilities, but none of the beetles I found while searching was this tiny. This insect is perched on one goldenrod blossom, that makes it very small.

More cool

slime molds

The penny is used to give the viewer an idea at the size of the cool white slimey stuff. It actually feels rather sticky. But its webs and details are so intriguing.

More cool

strange slime/fungi

white 'stuff'

Of course, this could be white footed slime which if it remains in a moist and warm place would develop into something identifiable. But the forecast looks dry for the next 7 to 8 days.

And then on to my favorites. The Dog Barf/Vomit or another name? Deer Barf! 

Or perhaps Scrambled Egg Slime.

Growing on my

mulch.

Harmless but strange!

Growing on a stump in the pasture.

My favorite fall insect. The Orb Weaver. She decided to set up in my Petunias and has been catching those awful Japanese Beetles that destroy my 4 O'Clocks!

Golden Orb Weaver

Garden

I like her, she is very productive. I've seen her wrap up about 2 of these beetles a day. I'm sure her 'kids' will love what she stored for them!

Lastly.
My only decent star trails/Perseids photo. I sat in the driveway yesterday morning and watched for a while before I decided to try and get a photo. There were 3 meteors that flashed through, but because I used LiveComp, the star trails sort of hide them. This was over my house which was Northwest and not the direction I was supposed to be looking.

And for those who 'see' things. I took a shot of a Teddy Bear cloud. I spent all morning trying to get that SD card to work. I lost it all by reformatting it. That is the first time in 10 years that happened to me. 

However to save the day, I took a terrible shot through the screen of a Duck while we were eating supper.

Ducky or

Bird 

in a wire Cage!

There.
I am off to find more curiosities in small places. 

I still am not allowed to do strenuous things. So I am ducking out of mowing and taking the afternoon to go explore a refurbished trail at KVR.

[Crossed Fingers...that is what I wish to do!]

Observations

I am so lucky to have an Orb Weaver set up in my Petunias!

Here she is on the day when I discovered her. 

Next day...she had her first catch! She is holding an insect but I couldn't get any closer than this without disturbing her.

She then wraps her victim up in a tidy package.

I imagine she ate it or stored it somewhere for when she lays her eggs?
And she awaits her next victim.

Crab Spider on the buds of a golden rod.

I did use a macro lens for this and it was nearly impossible to see if I was getting this tiny spider! 

Goldenrod action last night. Ants were crawling up and down the plant. I wonder if they were hunting tiny aphids?

These were all found near the house and neighbor's meadow since I am still under the watchful eye of the other half. 

Queen Anne's Lace. This is by far my most favorite wildflower of late summer. 

Morning dew

Late evening flower

Queen Anne Lace seeds

They are just so interesting! And they smell nice too. 

What is your favorite wild flower this time of year??? Hmmm?

Things are quiet on the home front. The mower was delivered and Rich already used it before the rain set in. 

One small step each day. I count today as a success so far.
My little pressing and drying experiment is going very well!

Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Purple Vervain, Cosmos, Bee Balm, and Lavender. And guess what? I have no idea what I will actually do with them!

Have a most excellent day.

I'm going to close my eyes and listen to the light rain.