Outside the wall

[pecunium]

Went to another Camp today. Took a walk around the outside. It was nice... Pleasantly grey, and green. The local oaks have huge caps on the acorns, and leaves the size of bread plates.

In a graveyard (tall standing stones, and thinnish buddhas) I saw the most amazing dragonfly (it make me think of you Kate... I took pictures). At first I thought is some cluster of flies, courting, but then I saw it was one single dragonfly. Copper-colored bodied, with dark wingtips. It was the wingtips, all four of them fluttering around the body.

So we headed out, to see the cataracts, a slow lazy spill of water (it must have been something when tropical storm meji was just finished) down the side of the mountain at the bottom of which Uijongbu sits.

The trail home had the light reversed, and that was when I saw them, the strangest spiders in my life (even counting the camel spiders, which were merely the scariest, and the small ones that looked like crumpled carbon paper, which I saw in Missouri). Green, and yellow and striped, with an enlongated body, reminiscent of a katydid in shape.

That wasn't the odd part, no, they were in colonies. I don't know how else to describe them. There were webs, and more webs, all touching. Spiders of various sizes (from half an inch of legspan, to almost four) were within inches of each other. It seemed that the webs were touching, like planes of interference in a large crystalline cluster.

I hope those pictures come out too.

Comments

[jennae.livejournal.com]

The images of those spiders will likely give me nightmares! UGH!

Everything seemed much more appealing up to that point.

Are you indifferent to spiders? Obviously I'm obsessed and have a serious phobia. I'll shut it now. >.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I guess I like them, in an abstract way.

Black widows, I can ignore (and, for monetary gain, have kept in jars, they stink). Brown recluse I'll kill, out of hand. Camel spiders can be ignored, if they are outside.

But the rest, so far none of them are repugnant, and they have a strange grace, esp. the web-spinners; tunnels, and chaotic, and round.

There was a really intersting web we saw in the Mojave, a round web, inside a chaotic web.

Maia works with them (which is, sometimes a bit more than my equanimity can take). I have let one tarantula climb on me. It was a testosterone thing. I wasn't going to let Dean Kane show me up.


But I've also gotten watch/help control a spider crawling across a scantily clad actress, which isn't a pleasure I'd imagine is easy to come by.

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

It all sounds so beautiful. :)

[ketzl.livejournal.com]

Spider colonies, now that's a frightening thought. Can't wait to see the pics. Hopefully all the dragonflies and spiders are keeping the biting insect population down to a bare minimum. I don't mind spiders but keep the mosquitoes away please!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It was static colonies. I'd have figured they'd want more room. Interesting to see that the largest spiders had the most central webs, so that they got fewer prey insects.

But the one I took the most pictures of had a meal in her mouth, so they don't (obviously) starve.

[ex-soothemys349.livejournal.com]

You had me lulled all the way through the spiders. I can't wait to see the pictures.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you don't like spiders?

I guess I'll have to scan them.

[ex-soothemys349.livejournal.com]

Actually, I liked the way described the spiders. I thought they sounded beautiful, well the webs sounded beautiful anyway.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The spiders are attractive too. But I like bugs, and plants. I just took a walk around Falling Water and got a shot of a cicada shell, and some fungi.

I figure that even for things like scorpions (which I have a visceral urge to smash, on sight) I can look at them in the abstract and appreciate the complexity, the lines, and the sheer tenacity they need to get by.

[ex-soothemys349.livejournal.com]

I have never seen a cicada bug or shell. I looked them up once to try and figure them out a little. We have a number of them singing around here. If memory serves, the cicada lives in the soil at the base of trees for like 7 years, then climbs up, lays eggs which hatch into the soil, and the process begins again. But the singing sounds like it's coming from the top of the trees.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Depends on the cicada. The ones of fame are the 17, and 21, year morphs, which come out in huge rafts (and every so often they are in synch).

When those come out, (as the 17 year did this last summer) they are in the millions.

I first encountered cicadas in Phoenix, 21 year ago, and the noise was deafening. I can't imagine how loud millions would be.

TK

[geekchick]

got a shot of a cicada shell

After this past summer, I'd be perfectly content to never see another one of those again.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Wait about 17 years, and see if you still feel that way. :)

[geekchick]

I will, I'm quite sure. =)

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

It sounds like an interesting and lovely place - I found you via a friend of a friend and added you - hope you don't mind. I love dragonflies (among other things) and I look forward to seeing if the photo turned out since I've just completed a dragonfly stained glass piece and have an urge to do some more (perhaps a mobil of dragonflies with different types of wings).

At any rate - it's nice to meet you.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I can see a couple of reasonable links.

I don't mind, feel free to root around in the memories, and the calendar.

I looked at the rose you did, and I suspect the blue cast to the glass, in the pictures is because of the light-temperature when you took the picture.

I'll have to scan the various pictures, so all of you can look at them.

TK