easter (garden update)

Thought you'd like a peak at how my garden grows!

tomatoes-to-be

strawberries...now if they'll just blossom!

good news?

Well, I have discovered that it wasn't a *black* widow that I had in that trash can last year. No, it was a brown widow. I discovered this because I have another one that I found as I was taking apart this old bird bath I had hanging around (I wanted to re-use the top for something else). Ugh. It still gives me the shivers. I didn't see her at first as she was balled up under the rim (although I was suspicious because the egg sacs looked so similar to the last time) so I blithely carried the bird bath out to the curb.

brown widow - eggs & markings

Realized later in the day that there definitely was a spider there - quite a large one, in fact. But still not too concerned b/c I could plainly see that is was brown and not black and that it had stripes on it's legs. Took a look at her with the headlights then when I got home just now. She had come out from being under the rim and was stretched out right in the middle of her web. I could see quite clearly that she had an orange/red marking on her abdomen and had that weird body shape that black widows have. Still, I thought, the striped legs, the brown body - surely it's an angiope.

angiope

Came inside to look up angiopes online. Definitely not the same spider. Then I thought to look up brown widows which I remembered hearing about earlier this year. Sure enough, brown widows also have striped legs and their color ranges from a light brown to an almost black - although they can get very dark markings and can sometimes be mistaken for a black widow. But the way you can tell them apart is that the brown widow has a spiky egg sac (see picture above). So that must have been a brown widow before b/c that was exactly what those eggs looked like then.

Apparently they are very prevalent in this area (http://sarasota.extension.ufl.edu/IPM/BrownWidow.htm) and their venom is twice as potent as the black widow. Isn't that nice? Luckily they are much less aggressive than the black widow and more likely to choose "flight" over "fight" which is probably why I haven't had a problem with them...other than scaring me 1/2 to death.

Not sure what to do about it now though. Should I kill it? I feel like I should so that the trash guy doesn't get hurt but now I'm nervous to go near it. (Which seems silly considering I carried it from the back yard to the front earlier AND was practically handling it when I was taking it apart.) I am never going to be able to get to sleep tonight - especially without being able to read!

UPDATE (3/23):
Well, I have killed it. Felt horrible because the spray (which I found in the garage from the previous owners) didn't work very quickly so I had to watch prolonged death throes, feeling more and more guilty all the while.

Here's a picture of her before her untimely death (most of her is still hidden under the edge):

reading deprivation

So I finally ran out of excuses to start the week of no reading (& other media). I made it through day 2 (since technically this is day 3 already). Only 4-1/2 more to go!

Came very close to giving up - or at least calling a time out - this afternoon and came to the realization that my intense urge to read was not, in fact, because I was bored (this is what I'd assumed would be my downfall) but the result of a stressful conversation with Mom (not stressful b/c of her; rather due to the topic).

The weird thing about it is that the desire to just read a book was so overwhelming - and I didn't make the connection between the stress and the desire until I was journaling afterwards. I knew that I used books as an escape but I hadn't realized that it was so unconscious!

Hoping that the rest of the week gets easier.

my newest babies

I think I am proudest of this latest "crop circle" as everything in here (saving the tomato plant in the middle) has been grown from seed (organic seed at that). I am particularly excited to start being able to enjoy the dill. Yummy.

clockwise, starting from the bottom: rosemary bush, dill, chives & leeks

with a beefsteak tomato plant, smack dab in the middle

the dill seems to realize how anxiously i'm awaiting it's fruition

Media Fast

I have begun to read the fourth chapter in The Artist's Way - and so the clock begins to tick. You see I was warned by a poster on 43 Things that the 4th week contains a ban on reading. Yes, ironically enough, an *author* asks you not to *read* for one full week. The rationalization behind this ban is that reading is used by artists as a tranquilizer to escape and that by removing the distraction, we allow ourselves to participate in the sensory world. Cameron also encourages banning or limiting other media distractions as well such as movies, radio, television and the like so that is my plan. I have decided that music is the one medium I will allow myself.

Even before the fast begins, I have already begun to notice how addicted to reading I really am. I have been putting it off with the lamest of excuses ("I just need to finish this one book" or "I cannot possibly keep this movie out of circulation for another entire week") so soon I will bite the bullet. Honestly, going without food or even water for a week seems more do-able at this point. I don't believe I have gone an entire week without reading since I first began to read. This will certainly be a test of willpower if nothing else.

GFO 2008

Lovely table overlooking the parking lot

Just came off of another one of our "GFO" vacations that have become an annual and sometimes even bi-annual tradition. Despite hearing about things going on at work to equal the Elizabethan court (which completely wrecked any chance of actually sleeping that weekend), I was reminded once again of how special and how rare these friendships are. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Hope to get more soon as (per usual), I completely forgot to take pictures most of the time!

Above & below taken at "Krystal & Becky's neighborhood bar"
Blue Martini
Shadow even got to be part of the "sleepover"

Annika demonstrates her dance moves

Things I worry about in the middle of the night

(1) Valuable Water Sources Disappearing

Lake Chad: 1972 and 1987. Lake Chad, which supplies water to Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, was once one of the largest lakes in Africa. But extensive irrigation projects, the encroaching desert and an increasingly dry climate have caused it to shrink to 5% its former size. (The Guardian, 3/4/2008)

(2) Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas

The yellow dots show the pattern that the trash moves so that there are spots where it accumulates into massive areas in the middle of the ocean. Below is the Pacific. The Atlantic has one too (how nice for it). (LA Times, 8/2/2006)

(3) Plastics & Microplastics in our Oceans

It's bad enough to hear about stories like the one about a whale that had basically starved to death because its stomach was full of the crap above. (Banish the Bags, Daily Mail, 2/27/2008) Even worse are the microscopic plastic particles that these plastics break down into that do the same thing to the fish and other marine life who eat them thinking they are plankton. (Invisible Plastic Trash Poses Newfound Threat to Sea Life, Live Science website, 11/2/2007)