time to peek in...

i'm back.

where have i been?

nowhere in  particular. right here.

living life.

reading books. a lot!

taking pictures. a lot!

enjoying...

a purple passion flower

i've thought about entering blog-land...many times.

but for some reason i just couldn't get motivated to do so.

this morning

emo found a snake in the garden...right by the front steps.

fortunately he (emo) was smart enough to leave it alone!

i did pick him (emo) up and bring him indoors...just to play it safe...

while the  VENOMOUS Moccasin  moves on!

pretty, eh?

(pretty scary too!)

a snake.  

it's the year of the snake.

and i was born in a snake year too.

so i thought it an omen!??

today seemed like a good day to poke my head in and say 'hi'.

i want to ease my way in.

one of the reasons i took a blog hiatus, was i started to feel overwhelmed.

now i plan to take it slower.

less often posting...and not trying to read every post of every blog i follow!

so

come on in

and enjoy a few pictures.

tiny tree snail, out back at the edge of the woods.

a Fence lizard

the next two pictures are of STINK BUGS!

stink bug nymphs

Green stink bug

one morning in may...about 7am, i looked out the back door...

and here's what i saw!!  a Barred Owl perched on the bird feeder...looking right at me!!

a Barred Owl

this is one of my favorite dragonfly shots i've taken lately (in june)!

perched on a cactus

a Zebra Longwing - the state butterfly for florida...feeding on lantana

about dem bOnes.

of course i'm still into bones.

finding them. cleaning them. turning them into...art?  jewelry? it all depends...

a hog skull my son travis found for me! =)

another great find!

i'm pretty sure these are Opossum feet!!

ok

the end is near.

ONE more thing to mention.

emo!

he sure has grown!!

and what a personality!

he is a butterfly, dragonfly, mole & mouse chaser.

he is an expert climber,

drinks out of the sink faucet,

and still sucks on our fingers at night.

here he is...deep n thought.

and here he is...passed out in sam's lap.

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”

~ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, and Three Guineas

stay cool.  be safe.

laura

creepy & crawly. halloween. skulls & bones

"Let go. Be afraid. You all taste so much better when you're afraid."  

(Stephen King's "It")

this year's halloween post is bursting at the seams with this past year's pictures of 

snakes, spiders, found skulls & bones.

fitting for a creepy day. or night.

but first...step inside...just a quick visit...

pumpkin  2008

pumpkin from '07

pumpkin '10

OH!  THERE YOU ARE!!

thought i lost you...

let me clear this...uh...red stuff from the mirror...

and you can follow me outside.

just watch your step...
and don't forget to pick up a stick...to wave in front of you...
so you don't get wrapped up in spider webs!

the poisonous CORAL snake...in our yard yesterday!

Golden Orb Weaver (banana spider), tight rope walking upside down (taken july. 2010)

BONES in the field & woods...

“When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.”   

Dawn of the Dead (1978) 

juvenile Black Racer  (september. 2010)

adult Black Racer  (june. 2010)

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”  

Norman Bates, Psycho (1960) 

i've come to learn that i'm not the only one who

(even after bolting all the doors, and checking them twice)

has to steal peeks from around the shower curtain

and wash the soap from my face in a frenzy...

when i'm home alone...showering!

Orb Weaver spinning her web only at night. front porch. (november. 2010)

dew covered spider web. halloween 2010

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.”   

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) 

more...BONES...

raccoon hand. found just like this. (september. 2010)

DID YOU REMEMBER TO WAVE THAT STICK?     (june. 2010)

“That cold ain’t the weather, that’s death approaching.”   

30 Days of Night (2007) 

a Moccasin crossing the road...from the field to our place.   (july. 2010)

an Argiope spider spotted on the side of the house.   yesterday.

^^((get a load of those RED LEGS!!  they look like they're FILLED WITH BLOOD!!))^^

Florida Banded Water Snake (Nerodia Fasciata Pictiventris)  in backyard. (october. 2011)

^^(that water snake up there, showed up while i was out back...digging up the earth,
looking for the 'possum bones...remember??  the buried 'possum?!)^^

squirrel skull found in woods.  (september. 2010)

while cleaning out the shed last week...my latest skeleton finds...

a Green Tree frog & two Anoles

the HOLY web.  or is it HOLE-EEeeek!!  taken a year ago yesterday.  (10.29.10)

"...enough already.

no more snakes, bones, spiders...pleeeeease!"

ok. ok.  but i have MORE!!  

alright. i give up. 

i love halloween...and i just couldn't NOT do my part!

“Hallo. Vould you like a roll in ze hay?”   

Mel Brooks'  'Young Frankenstein' (1974) 

have a creepy day. 

but be safe!

laura

“It’s Halloween, everyone’s entitled to one good scare.”   

Halloween (1978) 

(if you haven't had enough...be sure to check out my 'macabre page'  for more quotes & graphics)

into the treeless forest

this morning we went exploring. i took the camera, hoping to get some pictures of whatever we might happen to run across. bones. bugs. birds. deer. hmmmmm...we rode around on the 4-wheeler...down the road...across the fields...through the once wooded forests. once wooded, because they cut down the pine trees when they get big enough to cut down and haul them to the paper mills. (Georgia Pacific...2 factories within 45 miles of here.)  we had a nice ride...the weather's hot...no breeze...so it felt good riding along and cutting through the still air. nothing to take pictures of, so we started to head home. then i spotted some 'white something or other' on the ground...into the field a little ways. usually it turns out to be styrofoam, paper cups or plastic bags. but we got lucky. some deer bones. just a few rib pieces and vertebrae. cool! they'd been there for a while...bleached white and clean from the sun...weather.

i gathered up a few of the bones still in good shape. i noticed that grass was growing up out of the middle of one of the vertebraes.

i left that one to continue to become part of the field...

sam snapping away with the camera while i'm collecting...so i feel obligated to add one...

all sweaty and disheveled...(just like i wanna look in pictures, HA!)

a couple of nice butterfly pictures on the way home. the Gulf Fritillary...which seems to be about the only butterfly i'm snapping shots of lately! they're all over our yard too.

feeding on lantana.

as we're coming up the road, just about to our driveway...there's a snake in the middle of the road...crossing from the field to our yard. a pretty big, thick snake. dark markings. we came to a quick stop and i zoomed in...snapped a couple of pic's.  we inched forward so i could get a few more shots before it went under the brush. i thought it was a hognose. even after i looked it up in the Florida Reptile book...i thought that's what it probably was. but i wasn't 100% sure, so i forwarded a picture to someone who really knows his snakes!!  it's a Cottonmouth/Moccasin.  

WHOA!!!!!  at least i'm not the kind of person who wants to pick up, capture or handle everything i see. i like snakes, but i don't rush to pick 'em up!  i prefer to take pictures...and i appreciate the confidence and knowledge of those  who can identify these incredible & misunderstood creatures at first sight!

across the street, in the field, is a big old mud pit...and behind us...the far back acre of property is pretty swampy. that's probably where he's headed. 

so, we had a pretty exciting ride this morning after all!

i can't understand why some people hate snakes so much that they want to kill them...no matter what kind of snake it is...if  it's a snake, they just want to chop it's head off!  everything has a place in nature. everyone needs to learn to appreciate that. understand it.

i was born in the year of the snake.  :]

~~travel safe~~