The Zipper Spider has been quite successful catching prey today. Laurie noticed the underside of the Zipper Spider looks a lot like the colors and patterns on the wasp the Zipper has wrapped up like a mummy. The spider had several insects fully wrapped up in silk hanging in her web, but this one was partially exposed. The second photo shows the pattern on her underside — we are speculating that the coloration of the  Zipper’s belly may help her attract the wasps.  The third photo shows her eating an insect that is probably a wasp that has been turned brown by the digestive effects of her venom.

On our way in this morning some of the towers on the Sandias looked like they were built in the clouds. I took the photo through the windshield at Alameda and I-25. After cropping the image, the towers ended up looking more like spires on a castle in the clouds than radio towers.

The Conservancy still has the irrigation water cut off, so I haven’t been able to irrigate one of our rose gardens that we don’t have on a drip system for a month now. While some of the plants are starting to really suffer, the roses are hanging in pretty well as you can see from the rose in the last photo. One of the nice things about roses is that once they are established, most of them are fairly drought tolerant.