Let the Games Begin...

The jumpers have come out of hiding, finally!  I spotted a largish Bold Jumping Spider but it was firmly planted on the siding of the house which did not lend itself to photos.  So, I poked around the garden, hoping to find...well, anything really.  And I spotted a very tiny jumper on a bit of daffodil greenery!  By the time I got my lens into position, he was gone so I continued to poke around...until I felt something on my arm.  Yep, the jumper had landed on my arm.  So, have you ever tried to get a jumping spider to exit your arm?  Not easy.  He jumped on my lens, then on my pants, then back to my arm.  I finally got him to hop over to a spent daffodil where I was able to get a few quick shots.  I'm out of practice with macro so this isn't my best work.  But it's the moment I want to remember today.

The other moment I want to remember is when I looked up and didn't see Jax anywhere.  Knowing he couldn't jump the fence, I knew he had to be somewhere, but calling got zero results.  Finally, I caught some motion in the small 18 inch space under our bay window and behind the trellis where my clematis is growing - yep, he had shimmied under there and was snacking on the clematis leaves.  I snapped a shot, which I like a lot, and will put it in Extra.  

Tick season is upon us.  Poor Hubs pulled 5 ticks off himself yesterday after working in the yard for several hours.  I'm going to be doing a head-to-toe inspection on myself later since I was crouching in the grass quite a bit today.  This doesn't come even remotely close to the tick encounter in South Africa when I looked down at my tan pants and thought I must have gotten into a lot of dirt.  The guide took one look at me and said I had over 1,000 ticks on me - and so did Hilly and Beth.  To our credit, no hysteria and we all lined up dutifully to be sprayed and then dusted off with some sort of thorny shrub.  The ticks were literally the size of a grain of sand.  As soon as we got back to the lodge that morning, the pants and shirt came off and went directly to the laundry.  

Hubs and I watched "Apollo 13" last night - a great flick and we both enjoyed it.  

Dark with raspberry today.

xo
Debbi