Make an Adventure

To say that I have a 'normal' life would be somewhat of an exaggeration. What is normal?

In my mind's eye a normal person of my age and stature putters around in the morning and then has some coffee while reading the news.
Then she should prepare breakfast for her guests and set the table.

Later on, this nice little hostess would get a proper noon meal planned and sit on the porch and visit with her guests and husband.

The day would drag on to supper, chores would be done. The nice hostess would whip up an exotic supper and present it to the guests. Some nice conversation would occur around the table with cups of coffee.

Later everyone would go to bed and slumber.

Not
how it
happens
here!

I get up pre dawn and make coffee, let Charlie out and pretty soon my company starts to drift down the stairs. First comes Daryl and Scout, followed by his youngest daughter and Amanda. The dogs start to wrestle and play in the living room, so they are taken outside for a potty break.
Coffee is passed around along with some Kringle that was brought from the Racine Bakery.
We all look out the window and decide to go for a walk to look for spiders and dewy webs in the meadow.

Rubber chore boots go on over PJ pants for some...no need to dress fancy. The dogs chase each other around and around in the yard with dew drops spraying up from their legs.

We go walking in the tall weeds and grasses of the meadow and begin to spread out each person looking for webs and we begin to find many of them.

It is a bit of a fuzzy shot but then again...HOW close do I want to get to these guys or girls??? Not close!
We wander the meadow brushing up against weeds, and keeping an eye out for Charlie who is so small that he seems to disappear in the wet grasses.

Daryl gets close up and personal with the Spiders and we find dozens of small or 'baby' spiders.

We are like excited children, calling out to each other each time we find an incredible specimen.

Finally, soaked with dew, we all head back to the house for more coffee and to visit with Rich.

The kids do the chores and drag out Mt. Tank and fill it. The dogs are toweled off and we visit with Rich and have coffee and conversation. We discuss the meteor showers and decide we'll go on the ridge to try and watch them around midnight.

And that is just the start of our morning.

To be continued....

Spiders!

Charlie was nagging me early this morning.

I waited until the sun was breaking over the trees and decided to go look for dew laden spider webs. You can usually start finding them about this time of year.

I walked out back to check on the mules and noticed webs hanging from a dead ash tree in the meadow.

It looked like I'd have to go into the meadow to look for dew laden webs.

I found them.
And Charlie enjoyed getting totally soaked in the tall grass.

He got busy with something in the grass. I'm sure he was seeking out tasty bits of rabbit poop or deer poop.

I found a large web and walked over towards it.
It started to wobble.

I saw something yellow and thought I'd get closer.
That is until I saw what it was!

YES! Large spiders do make me squeamish. I was grateful I'd chosen the prime 85mm lens that allowed me to put some distance between myself and this fella.

Apparently this is a 'Garden Spider' and if you get near its web it will bounce its web to distract predators. I had to wait a long time to get a clear shot of it.
Note the grasshopper in the web on the left.
I wondered why I haven't seen these before. Maybe I just wasn't looking properly.

I got a few shots and then decided to move on back home and get some well deserved coffee.

I got sidetracked by this ox eye daisy...

It was just soooo perfect.

And as I headed towards the house, I saw another large web that I hadn't seen on the way out to the meadow.
Probably because the sun wasn't shining on it when I walked passed it.

Viola, another Black and Yellow Garden Spider!
This time I didn't scare it.

And that is how my Friday started.