winter stripes

Fighting colds, bearing toothaches, can photos stand in for our not-so-blog-worthy days? Hope so...I assigned myself the theme of "stripes" a few weeks back...the snow played along nicely.

a spider, a date, a walk...life!

We've fallen a bit in love with this spider.  Her proper name is Argiope aurantia, and we check in on her many many times a day.  Isn't she wonderful? Not only is she just beautiful, but she is an amazingly effective catcher of food.  Her web is spread across our comfrey plant (friend to spiders!), and it has a "zipper" of webbing that hangs below the hub, where she lies waiting.  The zig-zaggy zipper is called the stabilimentum, and there are many hypotheses as to why it is there: to warn mammals and birds not to run into the web; to distract from the hub, where she is waiting (unlikely, in my opinion.  I mean, I notice the stabilimentum, but there is no missing that gorgeous abdomen); reflecting UV light, it actually attracts insects. 

One morning we noticed a huge hole and a missing zipper, and she was working on a large insect (a bee?).  Only a couple of hours later she had repaired the hole, replaced the zipper and was again waiting, having tucked some of the food away for later. Impressive.

It has rained the last day, and there are a few trees in our neighborhood that are hinting at autumn.  I am right there with them, urging those little leaves towards a little glamour...

 We walked up to meet Dan for dinner the other night, before going to see a friend's art opening. We had time for some mugging before our food was ready...

(After this photo, Dan suggested we try making a picture where we don't look "weird", but since I found this to be the best one, I don't guess that we succeeded.  It looks like us, anyway!)

(All right, he's convinced me that this one's worth sharing - see, Mom? Here  I am!! )

Ah, another sign of the season: abandoned zucchini.  Does this happen in cities too?

She couldn't resist...

We roamed through the art show, featuring new faculty on campus, and then found our way downstairs where the girls and their friend, N., had set up a serious game of pool.  They had gotten started before we got there, having made quick work of the show, and had done a nice job of figuring it out for themselves.

Love that stance

 And then there was our walk home, through town and down the hill at sunset.

And since I took no photos of our friend's beautiful work, I will share one of the poems used in her work called oDE to ee cummings, which hung as an altered book of his 95 poems...

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

ee  cummings

"the goal of living is to grow"...indeed. 

Friday My Town Shoot-Out: brought to you by the letter "B"

It's been a while since I've linked a post to the always engaging My Town Shoot-out, a collaboration of photographer bloggers who share bits and pieces of their towns and communities, but I had just taken a bunch of photos at our community garden plot when I noticed that a number of them fit nicely with this week's theme of the letter B...so, two Birds with one Blogpost - here are some shots of the garden and the B's...

 Berries (from the living border around the garden)

 Beans! (growing in our little plot)

 Bamboo (holding up some beautiful Basella, or malabar spinach)

 Big Beetle (I think this is also called a Green Peach beetle, or a Chinese beetle. 

They are huge and bumbling, along the lines of a June Bug)

 Little Beetle (also known as a potato bug!)

Bees on Blossoms - a beautiful patch of echinacea, or purple coneflowers.

 Check out the other photos at Friday My Town Shoot-Out!

Friday My Town Shoot-Out : Yellow

The Friday My Town Shoot-Out is a collaboration of blogger photographers from around the world who share images of their towns, according to a weekly theme. Sometimes I get it together enough to play along. Today I managed to remember the theme - yellow! -  while walking through Athens, Ohio to meet Dan for a coffee date (it's spring break - no students!!). 

It was nice to walk to a quiet uptown; the day was quiet, gray, a little gloomy for being Spring. All the better today's search for yellow. Aha! Atop the courthouse! Justice, frozen in all her goldness.

 Some cheerful trim

 Peering through the barbershop window...

 ...which sported an odd piece of...art? Yellow.

 Dan wanted the girls to see the artwork currently hanging in the coffeeshop he frequents.  A good excuse for an afternoon chai and game of Othello, out in the world. More yellow...

 Alas, the old and yellowed jukebox doesn't work anymore.

 The stores are all definitely selling Spring. Not pictured: all the tanning salons advertising deals on extending that spring break tan...

 Outside, the day was still gray - I know, I know, it's only March and March is like that. It may actually snow tomorrow. But in the meantime...forsythia...

 And in our yard, a kind of muddy daffodil. What a lovely, buttery yellow.

 If you'd like to see how others interpreted this theme, have a look!

Friday My Town Shoot-Out: F

My Town Shoot-Out encourages amateur photographers to share images of their town, and in the process hopefully hone some of their photography skills! I am in high hopes of one of these weeks being caught up enough to do some honing specifically for this project, but I continue to mostly draw on my archives.  This week's theme is Things that start with the letter "F", and these photos were taken in and around Athens, Ohio.

Two "F"s come to mind simultaneously: friends and farms. So, we'll start with them both...

There are many small family farms in our hills, and we are fortunate to be friends with a number of organic farmers.  At certain times of the year we find ourselves visiting weekly, enjoying the land and the company of good friends...

We met for a while this fall for "bookclub", reading Charlotte's Web together with our friends. Pretty sweet when "school" takes place in a setting like this...complete with lunch.

Somehow I got close enough to one of the chickens to get a close-up of her beautiful feathers. Ffffff...

 "Farm School" was a regular feature in our lives and on this blog throughout the fall, and while we are on hiatus right now, until the weather warms, this farm is a 20 minute walk down the bike path from us, so we are frequent visitors...

Here is the farm in fog...ffffffffffffffff...

 Today we celebrated the long-awaited return of friends...I had to include some photos (ffff?) of them, because we are so happy they have come back...

Last but not least, I couldn't let an "F" post go by without at least a couple shots of fungi, could I?

And that's all I've got this week! To see how others were inspired by the great letter F, please go and have a look here!!