Sunrise poured light through the window, prompting Rosencrantz to rise, shine and model for me.
Category: Animals
The Kanji Look
Guildenstern studying Kanji, wanting to know “where the beef” is, and stretching out one fine morning.
Fashion Laur & Puzzle Cats
Since the dance room/photo studio is still full of stuff from our reorganizing, I had to get a shot of Laurie in her cute outfit of the day as she was literally ready to step out the door. The cats were all stacked up like a puzzle on me when I woke up, and the house was so cold that after some effort to extract myself, the cats stayed in place locked together. Even Mama Manx, who is always spring loaded, and normally jumps off the bed from my slightest movement, held firm on the edge of the bed waiting for the heat to come on.
Lithobius forficatus
It’s the time of year the sugar ants start prowling the kitchen for anything we have left unsealed. With the reemergence of sugar ants comes a lot of other insects, arthropods, myriapods and arachnids — what most people refer to as creepy crawlers — and with this reawakening of the “creepy crawlers” out comes my macro lens.
Today’s photo is of a Lithobius forficatus, commonly known as the stone centipede. We have lots of these 30 legged centipedes in the garden where they stir around in the soil mostly under rocks and wood eating lots of pests. One pest that centipedes eat are roly-polys or pill bugs, which are actually crustaceans. I don’t know of other predators in the garden that eat roly-polys. For those of you who are herpetophobic or ophidiophobic, larger centipedes will kill and eat small snakes and lizards. Centipedes also eat spiders and insects.
The Black Widow
“And here, my prize, the Black Widow. Isn’t she lovely?…And so deadly. Her kiss is fifteen times as poisonous as that of the rattlesnake. You see her venom is highly neurotoxic, which is to say that it attacks the central nervous system causing intense pain, profuse sweating, difficulty in breathing, loss of consciousness, violent convulsions and, finally…Death. You know what I think I love the most about her is her inborn need to dominate, possess. In fact, immediately after the consummation of her marriage to the smaller and weaker male of the species she kills and eats him…(laugh) oh, she is delicious…And I hope he was!”
Those words are part of Vincent Price’s introduction to “The Black Widow” on Alice Cooper’s 1975 album “Welcome to My Nightmare”.
While I was working on the gray water system this afternoon, I found a black widow where they like to be — in wet, humid areas — like the underside of the cover for the distribution hub for the gray water system. She seemed a little stunned by her sudden exposure to the sunlight, and allowed me to do several photos of her underside from different angles; but then I got too close and she scampered under some of the mulch. While I was cleaning out the pipes, she ran out on the cover to dry herself after I apparently got her wet. She allowed me to do several macro shots from a top view while she was drying out; therefore, the series gives you a detailed look at Vincent’s prize “The Black Widow”.
Behind Bars
As sad as this puppy looks behind bars, she really has a good life!
Cat Help in the Catio
Work continues on the catio. We started preparing the old cement slab for resurfacing on Saturday, but then we discovered we needed to rent a high pressure sprayer to clean it before we put on the resurfacing cement, plus the temperatures are supposed to stay above 50º F for 8 hours after the new surface is applied. Since the temperature only got into the 40’s over the weekend we decided to prepare surfaces for painting.
The first photo is Laurie preparing to wire brush the French windows so I could paint them. In the second photo, she is telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern what they could do to help. The third photo shows Guildenstern supervising Laurie. He had a lot to say about our work, so much so, that it wore him out and he had to take a break (fourth photo). The French windows and door had not been painted in 22 years. The ivy had grown up on them which marked and pulled off paint in various places, so I spent a good part of the day painting the windows and doors with a very good, “stain killer” primer. The last photo shows Laurie standing by the freshly primed windows.
As I have mentioned before, we live in a cold spot — the reason Laurie was dressed in layers of warm clothes to work on the catio. We went to a dinner party last night in Albuquerque. When we left the party at a little after 10:00 PM, the car showed the outside temperature was 47º F. When we got home 20 minutes later, the temperature at our house was 26º F. We live about 10 miles north and west as the crow flies, and about 700 feet lower than the part of Albuquerque we attended the dinner party, yet we were 21degrees colder.
Misty Mountains, Shaggy Dogs & Magic Light
On our way to rent a pressure sprayer to prepare the slab in the catio for resurfacing, we got distracted by misty mountains and shaggy dogs, and ended up not getting the pressure sprayer. Such is life and art in New Mexico.
Let a Sleeping Cat Lie?
Rosencrantz was so cute sleeping in, that I had to do a photo. I got only one shot of him sleeping before he kitty-sensed my camera, woke up, and looked around a bit disoriented. He was definitely unhappy with me disturbing his bliss by taking a photo of him while he was sleeping.
Waiting on a Waffle/Breakfast with Guildenstern
I had to get out my 17mm, super-wideangle lens to get a photo of Beaker impatiently waiting for the waffle that’s in the toaster oven. You can see the tips of his wings are a little blurry because he is fluttering them in anticipation. Guildenstern got up on the table, flopped himself down and waited to see what Laurie was having for breakfast. He wasn’t too sure about either the granola or the coffee.
Off Center & Not Even 