Farm Findings

With Livestock Guarding Dogs on duty, sightings of wildlife aren't always common. These creatures, however, aren't bothered by the dogs.

Once I saw this, I couldn't believe I hadn't spotted it earlier. I've obviously been visited by some ancient Chinese artisans.

The Pacific Northwest is a benign place. Most of our spiders and all of the snakes are harmless to humans. This orb spider has a huge web delicately inserted between berry brambles.

 This little garter snake is sunning in one of my favorite berry picking spots. I almost picked him.

And this guy is fleeing into the hay bale I was about to load.

The most unusual sighting is this praying mantis. I have never seen one "in the wild" here before.

Berry Time

The blackberries have had another great growing year, and I've spent plenty of time trying to re-establish a boundary - basically taking clippers out and hunting for my fencing.

I was just about to cut off one vine when I noticed it was inhabited.

This lovely Orb Weaver was patiently waiting for me to go away. A quick google search told me these spiders are most active at night, when they eat lots and lots of mosquitos. Welcome to my farm.

Marjay came by to help me by picking the ripe berries I was uncovering. Well, the ones I didn't get to first. That's the bright side of berry control.

Fuzzy Friends

While collecting huckleberries I was visited by this cute caterpillar, destined to become a Rusty Tussock Moth. It seems these moths are originally from Europe, but are now well settled in America. My little camera (temporary replacement for my beloved Cannon Powershot) doesn't do well at focusing close up in the shade (or rather, I suppose, I haven't figured out how to make it focus properly), so no pics of him in the bush amidst the pretty red berries, only a slightly out-of-focus studio shot.

A Hint of Spring

The last few days have been lovely, warm and sunny; this has encouraged flora and fauna to show themselves, and to bask in the sun.

Rethinking

My goal was to clear the blackberries, cottonwood and alder starts from the corner, providing more room for trailer turn-arounds. Part way through this pretty butterfly flew in and started tasting the multitude of blossoms. Butterflies have been scarce for ages, since all the spraying for gypsy moths. I love butterflies. Should I rethink, and leave these berries here?

No, that's just an excuse to stop doing a frustrating job. There are so many berries to choose from, the butterflies will be well fed here. Corner clearing continues.

Unexpected Encounter

Zander and I were walking up the hill under the power lines. I looked down in an area with no visible vegetation, and saw this: 

A tiny spider, no where near shelter. It was snowing fairly hard, about 36 degrees.

This small spider was walking across the snow. Actually, he'd stopped, seemingly aware of my presence.

He checked out the local environment with a few legs, and started walking again.

Spiders!

Fall is the time of spiders. Their webs can be found everywhere.

This web is holding water from a recent shower. It's amazing a web can hold so much water without breaking.

This one is a bit harder to see, partly because it's much larger than one would expect. This giant orb appeared at the end of the my friend's deck, without apparent support. After close investigation he discovered a strand between the rain gutter and the upturned table leg. That strand supports the entire web!

In this close up you can see the diagonal strand on the upper left that supports the web.

Photos (and investigation) by Ken Stallcup.

Morning Visitor

I'll Have Some HONEY With That

This morning Lula came up for some loving, so I sat down on the porch and put my arm around her back. And instantly felt a sharp pain - a wasp sting. Sure enough, there was a wasp crawling around in her fur. Yikes! I've been developing an allergy to wasps, so I quickly went inside and slathered honey on the sting, the taped a cotton round over the area to keep all that honey in there.

The pain started diffusing instantly, and after a few minutes I could barely feel it. For the first time I did not take any antihistamine - I wanted to see if the honey would be enough. It's been over an hour, and no ill affects. I get the occasional twinge from the site, but it doesn't hurt, I don't feel bad, it isn't swelling.

Love that honey.

Cinnabar Moth (NOT a Butterfly)

Thanks to my friend Glenn Grace I have learned that this is a moth, not a butterfly. I couldn't find it's identification because I was looking for native butterflies or moths, and this one is from France. It was imported to help control tansy ragwort (also imported from Europe). I have seen the caterpillars on tansy plants, but this was my first sighting of a moth.

This year I have seen more butterflies than I have for years. This unusual one posed nicely for pictures, then flew towards me and landed briefly on my nose.

Here are a couple pictures I found online of the caterpillar and a moth with the lower wings displayed.