more about spiders, plus photos for the Z!

post #99
     After doing some research on-line I learned that the spider whose web I showed in the last post is a very common SPINED MICRATHENA which nonetheless has a weird shape. The female spins the web, in the woods.  The male later swings in to fertilize her and often does not survive the encounter.   
     The truth is there seem to be a lot more weird looking spiders than I realized.  The "web site" here shows some of them.  Enjoy the wonder of these amazing spiders!

    Also weird was how my current reading coincided with my spider sighting.  Last weekend I was reading a book that George Ella gave me for my birthday, back in May.  She knows I am a huge E. B. White devotee; the book is The Story of Charlotte's Web: E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims (Walker and Co., 2011).  I happened to be reading Chapter 14, called Spinning.  It covers the research and information White gathered about spiders.  How surprised I was to be researching spiders at the same time.  He had the New York Public Library and his barn, while I have the internet and the woods.  We would both thank the human beings who figure out all this stuff about what is in the world.

     By the way, the book is interesting, but it suffers from one unavoidable drawback: the writing is not at all E. B. White's.

      The news on the Appalachia, Bluebird, Creek book is good -- George Ella has written words now and has made a draft of the layout.  It is as if still another of her ideas is sown and nourished and then brings forth, like a miraculous plant.  In this case, things have been enriching themselves for at least a year.  The last line now reads "by Zucchini and Zinnias."  This development encouraged me to find straight away some zucchini and zinnias to photograph -- no time to waste since it is already the middle of August.  So, with thanks to Sandy for growing zucchinis and to those friends with zinnias, here are some possible photos for future use:

almost the last two zucchinis in Sandy's garden

There were several watermelons as well hiding in her lush garden.

She also had these zinnias.

These zinnias surround Marjorie and George's mailbox.

This is the road all of us around here use, curvy though it may be.

  These photos are not the final say, but, as always, I enjoy sharing the process of the path-- equally curvy as this road -- which is used to reach a final expression in literature or art.
 

     

more web words and a tribute to Norway

post #48
      After posting my spider poem last week, I received two wonderful "connected" poems.  So, with thanks to Maureen, I would like to share the one by E. B. White:

The Spider's Web
 

The spider, dropping down from twig,
 Unfolds a plan of her devising,
 A thin premeditated rig
 To use in rising.

 And all that journey down through space,
 In cool descent and loyal hearted,
 She spins a ladder to the place
 From where she started.

 Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
 In spider's web a truth discerning,
 Attach one silken thread to you
 For my returning.

       I googled this poem and learned that it was first published anonymously in 1929.  Since EBW happens to be one of my all-time favorite writers, I have to confess that despite the fact I can't read the end of Charlotte's Web without wet eyes I love his delicious and subtle sense of humor.   (I was somewhat mollified about my own tears when I heard the author himself, during an NPR interview, tell about how it took him many tries -- I remember "17" -- to read that ending aloud for the audio book, without choking up.)

    But this is meant to be a photography blog!  I am going first to include a few fun images, mostly recent, to celebrate some of the many facets of this profession:

     a witness to unexpected cultural shifts --

This is a small railroad station in rural England!  But who showed up needing info while we were there?  a female Japanese, on a Sunday afternoon, when the station building was closed!  No available Ladies Toilets....

and population shifts, in rural Kentucky.

Also a witness to nature's wonders, in this case trying to show by looking down from above how long these stems are --

rattlesnake plantain

and how tall the trees --

an extremely warm and humid July evening

and how to make a squirrel eating an apple look like art instead of like the pesky rodent he or she really is.  His task went on long enough for me to go downstairs to get my camera and then return to the bedroom window!  I still don't know how a squirrel gets the apple up into the maple tree.  Can anyone help me with this question?

       As for the deer, who are beautiful, they are still like rodents!  Just ask our sunflower plants and the corn we didn't bother to plant.

one of the twins, with mama doe nearby

      Photography can also give an image to accompany our deepest joys and our deepest worries.  I haven't spoken yet on this blog about the tragedy in Norway, a country where several close family friends live or are from.  I was in England when the killings took place. I was deeply distressed and saddened, especially by the deaths of the young people connected by their willingness to work for a better future for their country. I am so sorry.  
     Since I started today's post with webs, I am pulling up two more web views from our Appalachian woods, as a way of expressing the on-going need we all have to connect, to trust, to work together -- and to work hard at doing all that.  Through this effort, we can honor those fallen Norwegians, their families, and their wonderful but wounded nation.  

Each web is a sign of hope for a new day.