No… we don’t want to go outside, it is hot out there.
We will just stay here under the desk.
Yeah, so what, I sleep in weird positions…
Hey, I want to be in the pictures too!
Dogs.
And a cat. Remember this photo, I have some amusing plans for this one.
Uh… you do know there is a comfortable bed right there, right?
Well there seem to be a lot of crows in that Eucalyptus. Big crows.
A lot of them.
An unusual number.
And a bunch in the tree next to that tree.
Seriously…
What the heck?
Well, I shooed those crows away, showed ’em who is higher on the food chain.
None of these pictures captures the whole mob of crows.
But you get some idea.
But the next day they were back… even closer to where I take my breaks outside at work… or are these even the same crows???
Seriously…
What the heck?
I was doing one of my patrols the other night, and I saw this preying mantis stuck in the orb web of a garden spider. Her back legs and wings were caught in the web, but her forearms were free. Whenever the spider came down to make the kill, she fought back with such bravery. I could either let nature take its course, or help her.
So, I got her out of the web. I seem to be making a lot of spiders angry lately.
I got her up on the arm of an outdoor couch, and used two sticks to try to take some of the web off.
After she could walk, she climbed up onto a garbage can.
That is a horrible picture, but you can see that she is still wrapped in webs.
Between the two of us, we got most of it off.
She seemed to know I was trying to help, and kept walking right over to me… or she was ready to attack me. Sort of hard to tell.
Also, some slug was going crazy on that garbage can.
Anyway, that is my new little friend.
I hope she is doing well out there in the wild.
As I went back inside, another mantis was waiting on the door. He seemed to be saying: ‘you are a friend to the mantis, and we will be your guardian spirits’… or he was just using the lights to attract bugs to eat.
But, like my mom says: Nature in the wild is seldom mild.
I do loves me some Photoshop!
How else could you make a face out of that?
I didn’t do a face with all the moon photos.
Sometimes a picture of the moon is just a picture of the moon. I call that one; ‘Moon Crotch’!
And sometimes, when the stars… and moons align, it already looks like a face, with moon eyes, eating a star.
Just a moon and some leaves. Maybe that could have been a face.
Just the reflection of a moon.
Just a… whatever the heck that is.
Just a moon, in the daytime, and a Eucalyptus tree… or maybe…
Not???
So I started taking pictures of the moon seen through trees. And I was just going to post the photos to clear them off my phone, but then, because sometimes the moon looked like an eye, I decided to use Photoshop and work a little weird magic.
Not that the original image was bad or anything.
It was just that I can take that…
And make it that.
Or make that…
From that.
That one, I didn’t even save the original photo.
Okay, having a technical issue. Back with more later.
I take a lot of pictures, especially at work where I am a security enforcement officer protecting a cancer research center. I see some weird stuff as I wander in and among the buildings.
I also get to see some kick-ass San Diego sunsets.
Oh yeah.
I have been filming some of the good ones in time lapse, so if I ever update the blog to let me post videos…
It will get really weird around here.
Weirder…
A scorpion stuck in a glue trap. So, I have shared black widow spiders with you, and a tarantula, raccoons, and now a scorpion. I see the coyotes, but haven’t gotten a good photo, and a rattlesnake is in my future!
But sunsets…
I like sunsets.
Yes indeed.
Sunsets.
Also, the pretzels in my lunch think I am the Devil… so…
So, you know how I have been going out in the yard and spraying spider webs with a mister bottle to make fake dew, in order to get that one perfect photo of sunlight turning all the little drops to diamonds? I still have more photos of that, but last night, I decided to get a little creative and let the crack squirrels in my head run wild.
I thought, hey, what if I try shooting some pictures in the dark, holding a flashlight, to light the wet webs from below?
And I’m not sure if my pictures live up to the dream I had in my crack squirrel-ravaged mind…
But I gave myself bonus points for creativity.
I moved on to an orb web. I had to hold the camera in one hand because I had a flashlight in the other. I could hear the long pause after I clicked the button, because the shutter stays open longer in the dark. And I knew I should have gotten out the tripod. I knew these would be shaky.
But I thought one might turn out.
Well it turned out that none of them turned out. But, then I remembered those wiggly light pictures I was experimenting with a while ago. So I started moving the camera while the shutter was open on purpose.
Now we have something. It might not be nature photography, but it sure the heck is art!
Oooooh… now I need to do this with colored lights!!!
Which sort of led to me going inside and grabbing the laser pointer we use to entertain the dogs…
So next time, I will share more of those.
Along with the rest of the pictures I took during the day… and maybe some crazy new experiments.
I hope it is big enough so that you can read it. Somebody found this in their old memories and sent it to me. I don’t remember who was babysitting Jessica. I don’t even remember writing this, but it has me all over it.
Basically, I invented the chat room blog post. You can rant, rave, do stand up comedy, seduce yourself… or others, as long as you are tasteful. This is a family blog, dagnabbit! Go in and leave random comments, answer old comments, add your story or just add to the craziness. But you can’t do it from here, because I am a computer moron, and links are hard. So go to my actual web page, and look in the top right corner, and click the blue words that say:
Beneath the calm surface of the water lurks grim death with razor-sharp teeth.
As my mom likes to say: Nature in the wild is seldom mild. That is true even here in San Diego.
The waving palms are just camouflage for vicious killing machines!
They also look cool reflected in the water.
Where they help to hide the tiger and leopard sharks, not to mention the cobra sharks, the scorpion sharks, the wolf sharks, the grizzly bear sharks, the hammerheads and the nailheads, and the rare but dreaded skunk sharks.
I’m just sayin’, man.
I’m pretty sure that is a sea monster… or two big fish swimming in line.
Did you spot the seagull by the waterfall? He is preening… probably snatching small mites and crushing them in his ferocious beak.
That is an actual feeding frenzy. I know it is just fish, but still, the circle of life, baby!
So beware the wild creatures, teeming in our very midst.
Don’t let the sun and the gentle breeze and swaying palms lull you into a false sense of security.
The wilds abide with wild things.
That’s where the wild things are.
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Click it! Just do it!
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Pouring My Art Out by Arthur H. Browne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at https://pouringmyartout.wordpress.com/.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Pouring My Art Out 