Earth Explorations

 I'll be brief but just had to share. I micro-meandered to the ditch and saw the most beautiful Banded Garden Spider. On one side she was banana milkshake with chocolate syrup lines, on the other she was a dark and light braided wool rug. She had not one but two grasshoppers in her web and I caught her feasting on one. The other had so recently become entrapped it wasn't even wound with silk yet.  A beautiful and unexpected gift. Thank you, Spider.

  My weird COVID19 dreams are back. Last night's dream while weird was kind of nice as I dreamed I saw a slime mold. In fact, I several different types of molds all, now that I think of it, were indoors which is not a great place for mold to be. Of course I ran and got my camera and uploaded the mold photos to iNaturalist. Perhaps I dreamed this in part because I have been busy adding observations to iNaturalist lately. I mentioned a few weeks ago the need to take a meandering nature walk where I look at things just to see what's there and take pictures if the thing I'm looking at will allow it. In the last ten days I've taken three such meanders (not much walking involved) in Badlands National Park, Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska, and the road ditch near my house. The road ditch near my house yielded the most interesting observations of the three. I meandered out there to check on a rubber rabbitbrush that in years past has often had multiple butterflies and bees s...