Tiny Spiders and Tiny Webs

            I have no idea how many tiny spider webs I have noticed in the grasses and low plants over the years. They seem to be most numerous in the fall or I seem to notice them more in the fall. 

            Anyway, this morning I had a closer look. There seem to be tiny spiders  under the webs. How could I have not noticed until this morning. I took several photos. This one seemed to be the best.

            I believe it is one of the "Sheetweb Weavers," and   possibly the spider called the Filmy Dome Spider (Neriene radiata).

The Three-Generations-Run

            I have been waiting, and hoping, for years for a three-generation-run. Sunday, September 20, 2015 was the day. Fleur-Ange and I drove up to Kingston, where my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live last Friday in preparation for the Sunday run. Sunday was the Terry Fox Run in Canada and we had, as I remember, 5 different Terry Fox Runs in the Kingston area to choose from with distances of 2,3,5, and 10 kilometres to choose from. Rosalee, my granddaughter, made the choice of a 5 kilometre run. That run was on Howe Island.

            Howe Island is the fourth largest of the "Thousand Islands" group that is at the end of Lake Ontario and the beginning of the St. Lawrence River. The island is almost 13 km long and 5 km wide.  At the western end of the island is Spithead Road with a loop at the  end. It is almost exactly 5 km to run to the end of the loop and back to the start. (It's in yellow on the map below.)

            

                                Danielle, Eric, Rosalee, Dean before the run.

            My granddaughter, Rosalee, and I left Danielle and Eric behind early in the run but Danielle was determined to catch up.

            Danielle caught up with us just where Fleur-Ange was taking photos at about the 3.5 km point in the run. Danielle stayed with us for about a kilometre but dropped back as Rosalee put on a burst of speed at the end of the run. I was just able to keep up with Rosalee until the last ten metres when she put on a final spurt that left me a bit behind her. (Actually, we had passed the 5 km point according to my Garmin but she did not know that.) My Garmin sports watch recorded us as finishing the 5 km at 35:37.0 in a pace of 7:07/km. I think that is an excellent run for a 7 year old and not too bad for a 72 year old either. Danielle came in about 45 seconds behind us. 

Two Evening Photos

            We had two interesting evenings over the past two days. On both days there was a lot of cloud until almost sunset then the clouds parted in the west to let the sun through.

            This first photo is from our west field, looking east across the meadow. Right now the "meadow" is full of goldenrods and was mostly caught in the shade of trees on the west side of our property but the trees near the house and barn were catching the late evening sun and really standing out due to the clouds in the east.

            The second photo is from the Waterfront Trail in Hamilton looking east across part of the Hamilton Harbour. We were lucky enough to get two parts of a rainbow, north and south sides, without getting caught in the rain.

Flowers

            I have been enjoying the colours of some of the fall wild flowers during the past couple of days. In this first photo, from our east field, one can see goldenrods in the far ground that are often blamed for allergies in this fall season. In the foreground are some green spikes that are the flowers of  Common Ragweed. The pollen from those flowers are the real cause of many allergic reactions. According to the literature, the pollen can travel up to 160 km (100 miles) so pulling it out of  your yard will not make much difference to your allergies.

            This second photo is a very close up photo of a Moth Mullein. It can start blooming as early as the middle of June but sometimes continues until October with the odd flower still showing into November and December if the late fall and early winter are warmer than usual.

Early Morning Photos

        Although I seldom use anything but "manual" for my photos, the Nikon Coolpix P7800 has a great night photo automatic setting. I used it this morning for two photos:

Moon and Venus

Orion

It Started With a Grapevine

(Hello Pablo!)

Lost Flickr Account

        Today, on a whim, I thought I would put a photo up on my long ignored Flickr account. It appears that I cannot get into my account any more. When I tried to get a new password, Flickr also gave me a new, unwanted, name. I heard, earlier this year, that I had paid for another year of Pro account and went in and deleted that pro account but was told it was good for another year and so I did not get my money back. So now I have an account that I cannot access. Given that I did not like what Flickr had done to my account and now that I cannot get in, I guess it is officially all over.

        Following is the photo I was going to put up on  Flickr and which I have already put up on my  Facebook page. (Wonder if I should look at the other photo account that I started and then ignored. What was it called? Instagram maybe?)

        The photo is of a Katydid that I found in our east meadow this morning. I don't know what kind of Katydid it is and am not sure if it is in full adult form yet. It was found on a Tall Goldenrod and I tried to photograph it there but it kept moving so I collected it on my hand to see if it would stay there. It did and I took several photos before putting it back on the goldenrod.

        Will I be putting up more photos on this blog? Will I write more? Time will tell. I do mentally put up blogs everyday but somehow the mental and the physical don't often happen together as is obvious as there has been nothing on the blog since April.