New pointless photos AND!!!

Things have changed a lot in my father's yard since the last time I was home. Spring's actually trying to happen. There are green things out there. It's amazing.

Now if we could only do something about the bloody poplar pollen so I could enjoy it...

I was out briefly before supper taking a few shots, so believe it or not there'll be some new photos on the blog this week. Photos of leaf buds, for the most part (Spring's trying to happen, yes. Doesn't mean it's got too far yet, though), but new photos nonetheless.

Like these daffodils.

Which I could have sworn were yellow a couple of years ago. I'm going to have to look at the photo archives, because that's going to bug me now. Ah hah! Proof! Yellow cups back then, if not the whole flower.

Anyway, when I moved over to take a closer shot of one of the daffodils (which, sadly, are a bit past their prime. Not bad for having been out for a week, at least), I got a very pleasant surprise:

You see it, don't you? Bottom third of the shot?

SPIDER!!!

Yay spiders.

This is my first spider shot of the season, which makes me happy. For those new to the program, I should explain that I'm a bit weirdly enthusiastic about spiders. Yes, even after having suffered the abscessed bite earlier this year (which, by the way, is finally healing nicely. Thanks for asking). Long story which can already be found on the blog -- use the search box at the top of the page if, for some reason, you're genuinely interested -- but I like spiders, and I like the challenge of taking pictures of spiders with my little autofocus camera.

This particular Goldenrod Spider definitely decided to be a challenge. I mean, the things are camouflaged to begin with so my camera can't find them, and then this little girl (girl, yes. The males look very different) kept moving to the other side of the petal when I tried to get a better angle. Moving to other petals, even.

See? Completely unhelpful. I can tell you, though, that if you click on this shot for the bigger version you might be able to tell that you're looking at a head-on view.

Might.

Maybe.

Ah well. Hopefully this is just the first of many 2011 spiders, and the first of my talking about spiders way too much.

Spiders are cool.

And this, by the way, is coming from someone who trained in mammalogy rather than anything to do with invertebrates. So if I've come around to thinking that the creepy crawlies are cool, you just know that it must be true.

Oh, don't look at me that way. It's been a long day, and things usually get a bit weird when I try to blog in the evening. All things considered, this has been a pretty reasonable post overall.





And since I think that it's pretty reasonable and it's my house, my rules around here, I guess we're ready to call it a night now.

Ok?







Ok. Good night, then.