Crispy Yellowness

A teaser from one of the San Antonio news stations last night about Monarch Butterflies made me think I needed to go see if there were still any along Pinto Creek. Even as recent as Monday I had seen them along Las Moras Creek. The blurb I heard made it sound like San Antonio was being inundated by them, but I guess it wouldn't have been much of a tease for them to say, "Hey, we're still seeing a few Monarchs in SA."

Out I went and, but heck, I only saw a few Snouts and two Queens on the farm today. I didn't even see a Sulpher or a Fritillary and we were lousy with Fritillaries just last week.

There wasn't much to shoot at all today, really. It's so dry here that everything is dying. Even the Goldeneyes that were covered with all manner of blossoms and flutterbies two weeks ago are now tipped with shriveled crispy yellowness. And, sadly, there are no rain chances in sight.

Part I -- Prelude to a Monarch

The Monarch Migration passes so quickly, I would have loved to have stayed home today to recover from yesterday, but they could be gone by tomorrow. They're only here a few days a year! But before I get to them, here's a few pix from the farm to start this trilogy off.

If you are in the mood to blow something up out of proportion, just click an image.

Below: We don't have the clouds of Monarchs this year that I've heard we've had in the past. Still, if you are in a shady spot near a creek and look up into the sky, you'll see the silhouettes of Monarchs flitting through the air.

Below: This was the only angle I could shoot the fungus from. The tree was growing on a steep slope and I couldn't walk down it--too slippery with dried leaves. Yes, dried leaves can be very slippery.

Below: I found some turkey feathers on Oak Road (my favorite spot on Pinto Farm) and remembered I could use the macro setting on something besides butterflies. Yes, I've been forgetting since the recent butterfly invasion.

Below: I detest spiders. They make my skin crawl. So I pretend that spiderwebs occur spontaneously in nature when I attempt to shoot them so I don't get too freaked out when something brushes my arm or falls in my hair.

All of the 10-11-08 Monarch Migration and Pinto Farm Pix can be seen HERE.

Day on the farm

Click images to enlarge!

My husband's late grandmother, Big Mama, used to live for arrowhead hunting. She passed this hobby on to her daughter and to my husband (and to all her descendants, I think). In fact, my first date with Wesley was an arrowhead hunt on the farm. Now, every time we have a big rain, the two of them are chomping at the bit to go arrowhead hunting. All that rain often exposes points and other artifacts. Since our pastures were recently cleared, leaving many gaping holes and fresh-turned earth, and since we had over three inches of rain in the last week (YEAH!) both my husband and mother in law had hoped to have an especially good hunt today.

I joined them, but to photograph, not hunt arrowheads. Walking around, bent over, staring at the ground gives me a massive headache. If points don't jump out at me, then I'm not interested.

Today they found some worked chips, a fossil or two, the tip of a point, a bit of quartz, and three little cacti that my mother in law insisted on digging up. Girlfriend is gaga for cacti.

While out at the farm I shot some of my favorite spots to visit on the property and our new (to us) irrigation equipment. It has yet to be set up but hubby eagerly awaits installing it. The carriage looking things are the "drive units." The semi-circular things are the wheels. Well, they will be wheels once they are assembled.

The pastures didn't jump up as green and gorgeous as I'd hoped after all that rain, but they are considerably greener all the same. And with more chances of rain this week, I am hopeful. The cows seem happy.

I was walking fairly slowly, what with the heat and humidity making me feel like was walking through sludge, and so allowed my eyes to scan the ground for arrowheads or cool looking rocks. I found a mollusk fossil, yea! We find hunks of red rock chock-a-block full of shells all the time but I've never seen such a nice, big mollusk on one.

We also wanted to check the water level in the big tank, it's looking good! It's looked better, but it's up from what it was and that's a very good thing. Hubby and his nephews catch catfish out of this water tank (formed from caliche) and I've finally acquired a liking for it. They use this little boat to run the trot line.




Below are a few of my favorite spots on the farm. It was so glaringly bright out today that all the greens are SUPER green. Lesson learned today? When there's this much green and this much light one doesn't need to use the "vivid" mode on her S3 IS.






















Lastly are some odd shots. I couldn't decide whether or not I liked how the spider web came out. I guess if I can't decide then I should probably put it in the "crap photo" folder? Also, here's a shot of one of the cows thoroughly enjoying some of the fresh new grass that sprung up after the rain. Yea rain! And, finally, the fossil I found.












Click to see a slideshow of my day on Pinto Farm.

Web of Life

I'm not the only one noticing spider webs lately:

Messages from the Collective Unconscious

Brackettville Web Design

I've been a bit of a Blog Hog lately. I can't help it, I just LOVE photography!

My sister in law asked me last time what my light source was. My answer went something like, "Uh... " I paid attention to what I was doing this time. No flash. The flood light over the porch illuminates the web from above and a bit to the side. The wind was gusting a bit tonight here in Brackettville and most of my web shots blurred, dangit. But I think I still got a few that were sharp and clear enough. The one who created this now has a friend. We call them Ellen and Sukeena and we call their web project Rose Red because they never stop building. We watch them nightly. We are pretty sure these web designers are Orb Weavers.

Orb Weaver Spider

Brackettville Web design

I was trying to shoot a very swollen spider building her web under the light of the full moon. I took over 40 shots and they were all crap. I cropped her and the moon out of this one, I kind of liked the way the web looked... the center looks like a shot of a galaxy (maybe a disintegrating galaxy), the outer web with its crazy angles, well, I look forward to shooting spider webs again. I've never snapped one I wasn't embarrassed to show anyone before. This makes me eager to do much better with webs the next time!