Daisy sounded the alert on this one .. I think this pole is about 6 inches wide.
Seriously .. this one freaked me out .. bad.
Ridiculously Big Ugly Spider
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Category Archives: Backyard Finds
Night Launch
As seen from our backyard.
The break in the trail is when I actually stopped the exposure to see if I could catch more. I thought the shuttle was already out of the frame 
So I put the 2 exposures together. [see it large] [see it huge!]
If you have to get out of bed at the crack of dawn
to take your dogs out 2 hours earlier then they usually get up. I hope you get to see something like this ..
Some strange reason Daisy decided she had to pee at 6:30 am this morning. I finally gave in when she kept crying after 10 minutes of ssssshhhhhing. But I’m glad she did, because I got to see this full moon out over our back yard. Of course the photo doesn’t do it justice, but at least I have something to recall it.
Time Flies
Its been raining for days around here, today was the first day all week that the afternoon sunshine could actually dry up the grass. The dogs are very thankful for that. Last night the frogs were louder then they had been in months (even louder then [this night]), I ended up sleeping in the guest room, convinced the sliding glass door was letting more frog noise in. I think having the TV on in the guest room is what helped me tune out the frog song. We also have a ton of baby dragonflies around our backyard. Our grass grows so fast right now, there are a ton of little perches for the guys to hang out on.
So .. what’s new here? Well .. yesterday I signed up for Image X. A photography workshop in New Orleans this October. I’m sooooo excited you have no idea. I’ve signed up for sessions with 2 photographers I know I have alot to learn from. I can’t wait. As for the photo business in general. I’m getting alot of emails and phone calls from interested people, I have a few sessions scheduled coming up, things seem to be growing. Its tough to know how things would really be in a good economy, since portraits are considered a luxury item.
And for a little health update .. its now been 4 months since my swollen glands first really started bothering me. 3 months since one Dr. diagnosed me with a ‘throat infection’ and gave me antibiotics that did nothing. 6 weeks since I switched my allergy medicine and was tested for various auto immune diseases. Yesterday I got those results back, and everything came back fine, so that’s good. That Dr. said that she still believes my problem is allergy related, but because I’ve tried 2 different oral meds and nose spray, and nothing has helped, she suggested I see an ENT just to be sure. So I called my ENT who was going to do my surgery last year and they happened to have an opening this morning. After checking out all my head openings and feeling all the glands and nodes in my throat, he decides I should have a CAT scan on my throat. He said my glands or nodes on the left side of my throat were larger then the right, and there aren’t any signs of infection (which I swear my ears were infected, they’ve been hurting for days). So after that exam, I had blood drawn because they’ll inject me with dye for the scan next week, and they want to make sure I wont have a problem with that. Sounds like a blast huh? He didn’t say what he’s looking for .. I’m pretty sure he’s just covering all the bases. Anyways, I should get the results from the CAT on the 30th.
A wetland update & some pretty flowers
I decided to see if I could reach the frog oasis today .. alot of the water that was there last time has gone. The picture on the left was taken 20 days ago, the one on the right is from today .. basically in the same place.
Here’s what’s still blocking me from reaching the pretty blue oasis flowers
Yeah there’s practically a lake in our backyard. Along the path out there I found 2 little pink flowers .. all by themselves.
So I decided to try to take some nice pictures.
Hearing is believing
I think I got at least 30 seconds of frog lovin’ going on here, it was a little breezy though .. hopefully you guys can hear this, let me know if you don’t
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Weekend Roundup
I took a break from working on the computer this weekend to find this:
Big Boy quickly ran over to let me know that he was innocent
And then pointed out the guilty party (like I didn’t catch her in action, ha!)
Daisy was so busted!
Next I’d like to introduce you to … THE TALLEST WEED EVER!!! This thing has been growing in our backyard for a few months, and then all of a sudden I realized that its freakin’ huge. See, our land slopes down just before the wetlands starts, its a good 4 foot drop .. so it was easy to underestimate the size of this thing. So I finally went down to check it out yesterday, and realized its probably TWICE my height .. yeah .. I’m saying this thing is def. over 10 feet tall, maybe closer to 12!
Its hard to get a photograph of a green weed infront of green trees and green grasses, so I tried my best to darken everything around it. Anyways, there’s a big palm next to it, I tried to draw lines on how much taller that palm is to me.
This was just a cool perspective .. the one on the left is the top of the weed, with pretty sky behind it. The one on the right is more of the weed, taken from about my eye line.
Then I tried to get in close .. because guess what .. this sucker is covered in thorns! And .. to my surprise, its also apparently covered in lady bugs.
And for those of you who dont live around here .. yesterday it rained .. alot .. and by alot I mean probably 2 feet of rain. I’m not kidding! It rained from 5pm until 12:30am .. pouring the entire time! I might be dramatic, but I really think we easily got over 6 inches, probably 8 inches of rain yesterday. So its spring, and it rained .. which means the frogs are going nuts! Our little wetland is filled with frogs, and their chorus is ridic. loud, especially at night. Last year I even had trouble sleeping through it. So when I woke up this morning and it was still going on, I decided it was about time to buy me some rain boots and check out what all the commotion was about.
When we bought this land, way back in ’06 (heh) this area was actually a dirt path, you could walk it all the way back to the forest. Then sometime last year it rained, and I haven’t been out there since .. until today.
This guy was looking for the frogs too
This is what I’ve determined to be the frog oasis .. you see this little patch of nice greenery is beautiful all year long, even when everything else is all dried up. So I believe this is where all the little suckers live.
Unfortunately, the water was just too darn deep after last night rain .. I was too close to going over my boots, so I decided to turn back.
And I never saw one darn frog. Seriously, there has to be THOUSANDS of frogs out there with the amount of noise they’re making .. and not freakin’ one of them jumped out at me. I really expected to walk out there and see them jumping from reed to reed, squatting on patches of grass, just posing for my camera .. and I got nothing. Oh well .. maybe when things dry up a bit I can make it out to the oasis and see if my theory is correct