Berry'd in Oatmeal Cookies

We had a nice rain yesterday, so I took a leisurely walk around the property.  I always love the fresh air after a good downpour, and the lovely light.

Nice to see more signs of fall, like changing leaves and darkening berries.

The beautyberries are completely ripe now...

...and are starting to lose their juicy purple orbs to passing birds.

The ducks are still active...

...and, of course, the monster carp are visible every day in the pond.  I'm glad that you can finally see the scale - no pun intended - by viewing the fish against the tulip tree leaves above it.  They're gigantic!

Of course, our kittens love the fresh air too, any time they can get it!

I always like finding insects after a storm.  This fellow is - I think - Platycheirus manicatus...a type of hover fly.  He's quite large, maybe 1 1/2 inches long.

Here's a common orb weaver spider egg sac that's just released a tumble of very tiny baby spiders.

Here's Mama!

 

I've been caught up in some new projects lately, but I found time last night to bake a really tasty batch of cookies.  They're tiny oatmeal cookies...

...sandwiched together with a really unique frosting.  It's made with boiled butter and brown sugar, like caramel, but then cooled and whipped with heavy cream and powdered sugar.  It has a kind of indescribable taste.  It's not quite caramel, not quite butterscotch, not quite brown sugar, not quite maple.  Todd and I puzzled over it last night and decided to just call it - extremely good.

The frosting is firm and doesn't weep out of the sandwich, one of my pet sandwich cookie peeves (doesn't everyone have them? Ha!).  

They're good eaten warm, but if you let them cool completely, the flavors deepen and you'll be tempted to eat six or seven of them and then suffer mightily for it in your next-morning workout, but maybe that's just me.  There is a LOT of sugar here, so pace yourself!  If you're interested in making them, the recipe is here.  I used 2% milk instead of cream and they turned out just fine.  Hope you give them a try. 

Have a great week! 

Gutter Flutter

It's 65 degrees right now, but with the wind it feels positively chilly.  I'm comfortably wrapped up in a shawl, even as I have all the windows open to flood the house with the wonderful fresh air.  Fall is my favorite season, and I'm loving it - chilly breeze and all.

I've been knitting like crazy in preparation for the Christmas season, but also because nothing feels cozier in the fall than to curl up with a ball of yarn at your side and a project in your lap.  Here's a peek of a few things that I've been working on:

 

 

I don't think I've ever had so many knitting projects going at the same time!  I'm already looking ahead to future projects.  I keep saying that I'm going to start knitting for myself, and I'm going to start with a pair of fingerless gloves...something that sounds really good right now!

We're doing our end-of-season yard work, too.  Todd has been up on the roof, cleaning the gutters.

We've both been working in the beds, weeding and pruning, and Todd swept up the paint chips from our recent house painting.

We spent an hour in our little swinging seat this weekend, looking out over the water and enjoying the wonderful weather.  Starting next weekend, our board games will be played down there, with a roaring fire going in the outdoor fireplace.  A double hooray for fall!

We can see the changing seasons in the insects, too.  These brown shield bugs are all over our screens.

They want inside, a warm place where they can overwinter.  They're harmless to us, but destructive to crops.  They're actually native to Asia, but came over here sometime in the 1990s, probably in shipped goods.  They have no natural predators here, so they've been able to spread quickly!

Spiders, of course, are everywhere in the fall.  This beauty is Neoscona crucifera and lives just outside our bedroom patio door.

 

Lots of spiny-backed orb weavers around...

...and lots of tattered web remains in this late season.

It's fun to be working and observing outside in the fall, but fall baking is a great joy for me too.  Hearty stews and homemade bread, roasted chicken, squash and late-season root vegetables are all nice, but it's the sweets that hold a special place in my heart...starting with pumpkin bread. 

I have a favorite recipe, of course (recipe here), but I kicked it up a notch this week by adding 1/2 teaspoon of cardamon, leaving the ground cinnamon at one teaspoon, and adding a cup of cinnamon chips.  I can't believe how much that improved an already-wonderful recipe.  Letting it sit a day or two makes it even better.

I do decrease the white sugar by one cup now, because 2 cups of sugar plus (or without) frosting is plenty for us.  But if you're feeling indulgent, go for it!  Just don't forget those cinnamon chips...they really take it to the next level. 

Have a great week! 

Spider Insider

When we heard that the former homeowners sprayed yearly for spiders (in addition to other things), we were dubious.  Spiders are beneficial, eating mosquitoes and other pests.  Their webs are pretty.  They usually have interesting markings.  However, now we understand...not that we would ever spray.  Since we're in the woods, we have a lot of spiders.  I used to brush the webs from our window frames and deck railings, but they reappear overnight.

I joked to Todd that we don't have to decorate the outside of the house for Halloween - the spiders have done the job for us.  We have to be careful, too, when walking around on the property.  Huge webs - the biggest I've ever seen - stretch between trees, across our driveway, and in bushes...webs that are multiple feet wide and sometimes difficult to see.

If you don't always see the big webs, sometimes you feel a feathery touch on your arm or face...that's the tripwire.  The vibration of the "wire" lets the spider know that an insect may be caught, or that danger might be nearby.  They also seem to anchor the web in places.  It's just an added precaution, since most spiders have incredible vision.

Sometimes I'll just see an insect leg, seemingly floating in midair.  It's usually caught on the remnant of an old web.

The most common spider around here is Lariniodides patagiaus, an orb weaver.  With leg span, they're about quarter-sized, and build beautiful, intricate webs.  The strands are sticky, easily trapping insects that bumble into the web.

We also have our fair share of funnel web spiders (family Agelenidae).

Unlike the orb weavers, their webs are horizontal, and the strands are slick, not sticky.  An insect landing there can't find purchase on the smooth surface, and their struggles alert the spider.  Even insects much larger than the spider are subdued by a few bites, as you can see by the photo above.

Of course, we have many spiny-backed orb weavers (Gasteracantha cancriformis), which I've talked about in recent weeks. 

They look like thorns, which is part of their camouflage.

Venusta orchard spiders (Leucauge venusta) have webs that are fairly close to the ground, typically spanning the distance between two low-growing bushes, or even our patio plants.

Not only are their abdomens beautifully colored, but their legs, too, are a lovely jade color.

They are orb weavers as well.

Another favorite is the crab spider (family Thomisidae).  They typically perch in flower blossoms, waiting for visiting insects.

They come in many different sizes and colors, but they always have that distinctive front leg stance.

Sometimes you don't see the spider at all...just the legs.

Despite his appearance, the Harvestman spider (Opiliones), while an arachnid, isn't a spider at all.  If you examine the body closely...

...you will see that they don't have a segmented abdomen/thorax.  They also do not build webs, and they don't produce venom (all spiders produce venom, although only a few are actually poisonous to humans).  That black dot is the single pair of eyes that Harvestman 'spiders' have, unlike 'real' spiders, which have multiple pairs. 

A true spider that I was delighted to find in our yard is Argiope aurantia, or the yellow and black garden spider.

Their legs are always oriented in a large "X" on the web, and they have a distinctive "Z" pattern woven beneath their perch.

 See how the spider is positioned behind a dense circle of webbing?  That is her camouflage.  There are many theories about why she weaves the zig zag design...to attract prey, to warn off low-flying birds, and it might be a stabilizing feature.


Argiope aurantia are rather large spiders with large abdomens, to to 1 1/8 inches.  Even so, they can subdue prey more than twice their size!

They're brightly colored and beautifully patterned.

I found three of them, on their respective webs, in an open bed at the front of the house, in one of the few sunny spots.  I've had my eye on this bed for several weeks.  It was full of tall, feathery plants that looked suspiciously like weeds, but I had avoided pulling them in case they were a type of fall-blooming plant.  Now I know that they're weeds, but I am going to leave them up this year, because I don't want to deprive Argiope aurantia of her habitat.  I greatly enjoy watching them on their webs.  Sometimes insects fly into the web but are able to escape, even though Argiope aurantia rushes to detain them.  She calmly eats the damaged part of the web to tidy it up...

...and goes back to waiting.  She'll spin a new web the next day, so no need to cry over spilled milk.  What a beauty!

When I'm grumbling to Todd about the messy look that the spiderwebs give our house and our deck, I'm going to try to remember the creatures that inhabit them...how interesting they are, and the good that they do. 

Have a great week!