The Itsy, Bitsy Spider - NOT!

A rather pretty spider, right? Well this lovely spider is living right by my front door and is HUGE! After searching the Internet I found out it is a Common Garden Spider." This web page says it should be in our area but I sure have never seen anything like it. Did find out the male of this species is pretty small so we know this is a female. This spider's body is about 1 1/4" in length and about 3/4" across and it is about 3" across from leg tip to leg tip.

We have decided to leave it there after we read that it is not poisonous. Today I went out and looked over the porch and saw that it had a grasshopper all covered in web towards the bottom of the pretty web. Later this afternoon the grasshopper was moved to the center of the web and tonight it is gone, presumably eaten. As you can tell we are watching the activity pretty close. One thing we did notice is the web is very strong, not like most of the spider webs we see.

I am not afraid of spiders with the exception if they are crawling on my body so will let it stay out there. Now snakes are a different story - EEEEK - can't stand them and they scare the pajeebers out of me every time and don't want any living in my yard.

Lynn

More Summer Adventure

We traveled across the mountains to the east side of Washington to visit more relatives the last half of our trip. This is the view one cousin has from the backside of his house. Isn't it beautiful?

The countryside east of the mountains is pretty dry with the exception of where there is irrigation. This is a wheat field that has been harvested in the background.

The photos are not really in the correct order we saw them but the one above is of the Columbia River after we crossed to the east side of it. Pretty dry and rocky most of the area around it too unless you get right up to the shore and in the recreation area where the sprinklers were going.

While in Spokane we had a picnic in this beautiful park. It was a lovely afternoon with no wind. I was amused when our aunt thought it was windy one day and we just considered it a slight breeze. In Nebraska we get hot winds a lot of time during the summer and cold winds in the winter. That makes it sound pretty awful here but it really isn't. We love living here with the lack of people, cars and traffic and lots of sunshine.

While in Spokane we visited St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral - wow what a beautiful church. This is the stained glass rose window at one end but there were lots of other large beautiful stained glass windows in this church. If you ever get a chance to visit the Spokane area take a side trip to see this Gothic inspired church.

The main reason we took this trip at this time was that John's only surviving aunt and uncle were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. They have always been special to John as he was born on their wedding day. Oops, I just told you how old he is...just keep it a secret between us OK?

We joke that other 60 yr olds look a lot older than we are - by the way I am not quite there yet. I figure if I feel good and can do the things I want to do then who cares what age you are. Right?

It has taken a couple of days to recover though. Our plane didn't get in to Omaha until 10 pm and it is a 3 hour drive from their to get home so we ended the trip on a late night. Our trip was short but enough time to see people and enjoy seeing another part of the country.

Lynn

Sweet Pea

Trying something new here today so hope it works. I took a short video of the cockatoo that belongs to one of the cousins with my digital camera. It was the funniest bird and wanted to have our grandchildren be able to watch him. The bird's name is Sweet Pea. (They thought it was a girl when they named it then found out later it was a boy but the name stuck.)

This bird can say a couple of words and loves his family. It snuggled down on the shoulders of family members and wanted to be petted just like a cat or dog. I had no idea that birds could be so affectionate.

One of the things it likes to do is sit on someones shoulder when they are eating then it leans forward to try and get a piece of food out of their mouth. Sounds kind of gross but mostly the family just put a piece of lettuce in the corner of their closed lips and he would eat it. We laughed and laughed at him and his silly antics - better than a comedian.

Lynn

Summer Trip

Can you guess where we just traveled for a summer trip? We flew into Seattle and visited cousins that live north of there for a few days last week then drove across to Spokane to do the same with more relatives. The photo above is of Puget Sound.

I always love going to places that have large bodies of water as we just don't have that here in central Nebraska. The weather had been really hot in the Seattle area the week before we arrived but turned cold, cold, cold while we were there. I don't think the temps. climbed much above 65 and it was so damp too that I about froze.

Thinking that it was summer I took only summer clothes (one pr. of long pants) and borrowed more sweaters and coats and still was cold. You can kind of see how hazy the photo above is and that is how it was while we were there.

Turned on the Macro setting on the camera and took a close up photo of this rock with barnacles all over it. Rather interesting rock.

Loved these poles stuck in the ground near the shore. The reflections were just great and a seagull agreed to sit on top while I took my photos - that added to the mood I think.

The whole group of us went to the Everett Marina to eat at Anthony's and had a wonderful seafood dinner. After dinner we walked out on the pier to look at all the boats. The sun was going down by then but with the aid of a post for a tripod I was able to take these photos using a timed shutter. They turned out quite pretty. It was a beautiful evening with no wind and I must have finally warmed up a little or gotten used to the damp, cool weather as I wasn't so cold by then.

Great time but all too short. We usually don't go anywhere in the summer because of irrigating the crops but John got a couple of guys to take care of it and off we went. We traveled with John's sister and brother in law too and had a great time with them.

As you can see - no sewing for now.
Lynn