Light Hunting & Bugs

 

Charlie followed me on a morning walk but won't go down the road where the Naughty Dog lives. He is a smart guy and doesn't forget things easily. He is probably smarter than I am.

I have to pick him up to go any further down the road. I'd only come to the ridge to hunt down morning light, dew drops, and spider threads.

The oats offered a great place to shoot but to get the light I wanted...

...I needed to walk past the Naughty Dog House. I decided to just go back down into our valley. I'd look in the Winter Paddock. 

There are tons of interesting things to see. 

Charlie was relieved and he hurried ahead of me.

It was another dew filled morning and I wanted to find connections and threads glistening in the morning light.

I don't usually go to the winter pasture as it is a mess of weeds. I know...mow it. True enough. I need a bulldozer first to level it. At present, it is a pasture of weeds, gullies, and rocks. The Dexter Cattle used to keep it clean as a whistle. 
If I could convince my neighbors to add their goats to the pasture I would. I'd even put in extra hot wires and a goat gate.
Oh well.

This was another Long Lens experiment. I should not have been  surprised at how easily I adapted to it. My father only had a long lens on his camera. He let me frame photos with it and pretend to take pictures. He had fun asking me to figure out the exposure and fstop for different situations. One of his mantras was sunny sky--- f11 at 125. 

There I go off on a tangent again.

It took a great deal of work and maneuvering, but I finally got those gossamer threads!

It was still early so I decided to hunt around for more cool things. Our heavy wet dew fall had added just enough moisture to the ground to produce some fungi.

It turned into a great day for hunting insects.

I did this while weeding and dead heading my flowers near the house. I used the macro lens for these shots.

I have waged a little war on the Japanese Beetles. I smack them off my 4 o'clocks into soapy water and watch them drown.

I'm mean aren't I?

I wish the birds would eat these. 

Today it is raining and cooling off. What a delight. The grass will grow and the yard will need mowing.

Well, we needed the rain and the pastures needed to grow!

Charlie and I will be packing for our short adventure this weekend.

tiny tiny Tiny

We had a hard frost Sunday morning. I thought I'd take a walk to the creek and around the pastures to see if I could find anything 'frosty' and cool. 

I pulled out my 30mm macro lens. The one that you have to get down and dirty with. Well, not really down and dirty ~ but only if you want to...and I often can be found nearly laying in the dirt or on the forest floor bugs be damned. 

First let me say that we have an incredible forest around us. There is so much to see that it is overwhelming. I have to go to the ridge to get a landscape shot. The woods becomes a place of little things to notice and see. The tiny flowers, the moss, the lichen, the fungi, and the insects. I seem to notice and enjoy finding the little things sometimes more than the Big Picture.

Here is a dandelion from the yard on Saturday. Those little curls just beg to be photographed. The flower on its own isn't impressive, but what is inside it...is.

[Shot with the microscopic feature on my TG6 Olympus pocket camera.]

I have no idea what kind of insect this is, but it has pollen on it from the dandelion so I imagine it uses it as food? Shot with the 30mm lens. The frustration of this lens is my inability to 'get' all of the insect in focus.

So I went searching for frosty things and bugs. The sky was unremarkable other than the sun just coming up. I spotted a doe who whistled at me and ran off. But I was more interested in the tiny things I could find.

I was pretty excited over the dandelions. When I showed these to Rich his reaction was rather ambivalent. 

The ice crystals were pretty damned awesome.

I decided to head on down into the woods and see what I could find along the creek. Was it warmer near the creek? Or was it colder? 

My shadow in the frosted pasture.

It took me a while to get to the creek. I kept stopping to peer at tiny flowers coming up and looking at the violets that were still closed against the cold. Berry briars had frost on some leaves as did the multi floral rose bushes. 

The sun was peeking into the creek and a tiny bit of steam was rising from the water. By mid summer this creek will be obscured with Jewel Weed and other plants. The view in early spring is always amazing.

I went in search of moss. Who would have guessed?

This type of moss had leaves like cups that caught the moisture in the air. I thought this was ingenious. No wonder moss could live through droughts. This moss was just above the creek on a rock.

And this moss was on another piece of wood. I noted that it was 'flowering'. Well they really don't flower but do release spores. The blue is the creek just below the moss covered log. I have NO idea what type of moss it is. 

Imagine my delight to find some more moss that looked like the little spore things had exploded!

I think the proper name for this may be Sporophyte but do not hold me to it.

Here it is cropped in tighter....

I also found many ferns beginning to unfurl. The maidenhair fern is one of my favorites but I found about four different kinds.

I do like tiny things. That world is so fascinating.

Looking forward to today's weather as we are supposed to warm up to nearly 70!

Goat, Pony, Fence, Dew, Mules

That about sums it up.

Sven got a new lot and I put Mr. Pony Baloney...Lil Richard in with him as an experiment. Lil Richard used to be an escape artist but I've found that putting him an electric fence with a third line keeps him from going under the fence.
Likewise, I had so much trouble keeping Sven in any mule fence. He would just duck under the hot wire.

I can't mow this section because it is a hill and it is littered with huge rocks. I needed to be cautious and not cause erosion so Lil Richard will make visits and Sven will have the run of the area in the summer.
He is a grazing animal and has suddenly become infatuated with the pony.

However, he is also respecting the fence. The only time Sven got out was when he and Lil Richard were playing 'tag'. Since then it has been very peaceful. I'm happy I can have Sven earn his keep!

I fenced in this section of the 'yard'. It is a pain to mow. And it was used for hay storage for round bales for years. It also is a place for Mystical Things that Hubby keeps that are stored and forgotten. Like the Tractor he had and parked next to the fence in 2015. I didn't fence in his mom's car, the old tractor or the manure spreader [that has become part of the landscape]. There is still room to use Lil Richard to keep down the grasses around them.

But now the mules can eat the good stuff out of this area and I can run the mower over the weeds to keep it tidy.

Yesterday morning was one of those incredible misty mornings we often get in the 'Driftless' Region of Wisconsin.
The early morning is absolutely incredible.

It is time to trim up these mules and get back to riding now that all the Spring Fence work is done.

The fog and the dew was rather incredible. I do love early mornings!

Today it is overcast but it is supposed to be warm. Rich mowed yard yesterday. The first time he has felt good enough in 3 years to actually mow!

Today I'm taking a break with my Hiking Buddy, Bill. I'm going to show him Black Hawk Rock.

So.
Even with the Covid-19 threat, our CrossFit Coach has come up with a plan that I can modify work outs and do them at home with items I have here.
I'll write about that later.
Right now I have to go work out and report back to my Coach.
Just call me happy!
I'm back at it.

The only draw back is I don't have the music they played in the gym.