Autumn in Indiana

This year the fall color is particularly beautiful.

The sugar maples are putting on quite a show.

I hope that October is beautiful where you are too!

All best,

Firefox

Closeup

A visitor stopped by this weekend.

I was able to capture these photos through our window.

What a cutie!

All best,

Firefox

Some bouquets for a sunny day

Some fun with blue and orange, here is another…

I love the color contrasts!

Cilantro for a Mexican fiesta, and a little color too!

Gentle colors and delicate forms.

Flowers for a party.

A cupful of beauty.

And a closeup to finish.

I hope that you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed putting them together.

Have a great day!

Firefox

Canning flowers

Can’t stop to chat just now! In an awful rush, it’s canning season.

Canning flowers to enjoy when the winter winds whip.

Loads to do just now.

Busy as a bee, or two.

I hope you enjoy this first batch!

All best,

Firefox

A heck of a spider!!!

While working in the garden we noticed a huge web. It was a web unlike any we had ever seen and in it was a heck of a spider! Yikes!!! So we took some pictures and sat down to identify this beast. Happily it was a harmless garden spider, its common name is actually Yellow Garden Spider. Here are a few other common names in case you have heard of it, Black and Yellow Garden Spider, Black and Yellow Argiope, Garden Spider, Writing Spider, Golden Orbweaver.
Here is more information on this beauty from this amazing web site:
http://www.spiders.us/species/argiope-aurantia/
Commonly found in orchards, forest edges, old fields, farms and gardens. Check.
The web is large. Check.
Built in the midst of tangled grasses from the ground to about three feet high. Check.
Web usually decorated with a bold, zigzag band of silk called a stabilimentum. Check.
Spider lives in the center of the web. Check.
Hangs with its head down. Check.
It eats what wanders by the web, as we might suppose. But the description says that this can include grasshoppers or even lizards. Well, it IS big enough.
Here is what the website says about lifecycle:
An annual species, males die not too long after mating and females usually die off towards the end of the fall, or early winter. Studies have actually shown that the males’ death is triggered upon inserting the second palp into the female during mating (Foellmer & Fairbairn 2003).
It must be tough being a male spider!
Egg sac is produced by the mature female spider in late summer or fall. It is spherical to pear-shaped, about 20-25mm long, covered in tough brown silk, and placed on the periphery of the web. Females typically lay 3 or 4 egg sacs, roughly 7-15 days apart. Each sac can contain 400 to 1,200 yellowish eggs, sometimes even more (1,200 in one sac is not uncommon). Spiderlings hatch within the egg sac in late autumn and overwinter inside the protective, insulated sac, emerging the following spring. Argiope are diurnal (daytime active), but might also occasionally feed at night if the temperature is warm.
From this information, it sounds like we will have many more golden orbweavers in our garden next year eating those pesky insects that eat our flowers! I say hooray for spiders [in the garden]!