In the veggie garden

The sun came out. And I went out and took photos of the flowers in my kitchen (veggie) garden.

Zucchini. The flowers hide in the shade under the big, prickly leaves. That may be why the deer don't eat them.

The deer left me a few scarlet runner bean flowers. This one has a pretty, stripy fly.

It's a grass fly, Thaumatomyia glabra, I think. A very tiny fly, good to have in a garden; they eat aphids.

Another zucchini flower, this one with a leggy harvestman on a leaf.

The flowers of cilantro are tiny, and edible, with a slightly spicy taste. (Whether you like or hate cilantro is a genetic trait. To some people it tastes like soap.)

Interesting umbels; flowers on the outside of each cluster have 4 long petals off to the side; the central flowers are tiny.

Parsley, going to seed.

Another of the scarlet runner bean flower clusters.

And there will be sunflowers eventually.

When I went out to water after supper, I saw that the nasturtium has opened a couple of flowers. Another salad veggie coming up. (The leaves and flowers are good to eat, but I look forward to the spicy seeds.)

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Salió el sol. Y fue a sacar las fotos de las flores de las verduras y hierbas en mi jardín.

1. Flor de calabacita. Se abren en la sombra debajo de las hojas grandes, con espinitas; será por eso que los venados no se las comen, tal vez.
2. Los venados me dejaron unas pocas flores de frijol escarlata; estas llevan, además, una mosca bonita.
3. Es una mosca de la hierba, Thaumatomyia glabra. Bienvenida en el jardín, pues se come los áfidos.
4. Otra flor de calabacita. A esta le acompaña un opilión patudo en una hoja.
5. Las flores de cilantro también se comen. Tienen un sabor más fuerte que el de las hojas. (Algunas personas no pueden tolerar el cilantro; les sabe a jabón. Es un rasgo genético.)
6. Las flores tienen una forma interesante. En cada inflorescencia, las florecitas en el exterior tienen 4 pétalos largos, estos extendidos hacia afuera.
7. Las flores de perejil, ya empezando a producir semillas.
8. Otras flores del frijol escarlata.
9. Y con tiempo, habrá flores de girasol.

Cuando salí al atardecer para regar las plantas, vi que la capuchina ya abrió dos flores. Otra verdura para mis ensaladas. Las hojas y las flores son buenas, pero me gustan especialmente las semillas picantes.

Amazing bearded beastie

I'm going about this backwards. Usually, I post something here, then send links to various places; this time, I started with a post to the Arachtober group, starting off the month of spider and kin photos.

But I mentioned this find here yesterday, so here's the story.

This was when I was poking through the duff on the forest floor. I picked up a small piece of bark and turned it over. Nothing much there, but something suggested spidery legs; I couldn't be sure, but they seemed to be moving. Not running, as a disturbed spider would, just waving slightly. I popped the piece of bark in a plastic bag and brought it home.

Under a lens, I found it; a strange-looking beastie with some whitish stuff in front. For a bit, I thought it was dead, but then it waved a leg or two. Not dead, injured, though; and a couple of its 8 legs were cropped off. 

The next day, looking at it again, it dropped off the piece of bark onto my desk. And here it is, still moving feebly:

One of the harvestmen, Opiliones.

Here, with those two long legs cropped off, to get a better look at the body.

8 legs; it's one of the arachnid tribe. And with that one-piece body, it's a harvestman. Those extra-long second legs are used as sensory organs, as insects use their antennae. Watch a harvestman walking next time you see one; they feel ahead of themselves with those legs. Their eyes aren't much use for detail work.

But what was that contraption in front of the head? The harvestmen I see around the house have nothing like that. I wondered, at first, if it was some sort of fungal infection, especially considering the row of protrusions around the rear.

Look at them, as my little microscope found them:

A tidy sort of lattice work in front; someone has called it a doily. Maybe a grandpa's beard. Too neatly arranged to be a fungus.

Zooming in.

With that view, and an image search and a combing through BugGuide and iNaturalist, I found it; there's a group of harvestmen that wear these face decorations. This one is Dendrolasma mirabile, in the Sub-family Ortholasmatinae.

The members of the Ortholasmatinae are among the most spectacular and ornamented in the Dyspnoi. The dorsum of most species is covered with anvil-shaped tubercles that have long horizontal arms intersecting with each other and forming individual geometric patterns like combs, squares or finer reticulate patterns. In most species, the eye tubercle is drawn out to a long spine that is set laterally with long tubercles that are joint at their tips. Together they form an ornamental and elaborate basket over the chelicerae. (Axel Schoenhofer)

So that describes the patterns on its back, and the "basketwork" in front of the mouth; extensions of the eye tubercule!

My poor beastie died on the second day. Otherwise, I would have returned it to the spot where I found it, where its relatives would be living.

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Hoy estoy haciendo las cosas al revés. Normalmente, subo algo aquí en el blog, y luego envío enlaces a varias partes. Esta vez, empecé con subir una foto al grupo de Arachtober, para empezar el mes de fotos de arañas y sus parientes.

Pero había mencionado este encuentro aquí, ayer, y no conté la historia.

Esto era cuando estaba en el bosque examinando la hojarasca en el suelo. Recogí un pedacito de corteza de árbol y miré el verso. Parecía estar limpio, pero algo me sugerió la idea de patas de araña; no podía estar segura, perao parecía que se movían. No corrían, como correría una araña espantada, pero apenas temblando. Metí la corteza en una bolsita de plástico y me la traje a casa.

Aquí, bajo un lente de aumento, lo encontré; un animalito extraño con algo pálido enfrente. Por un momento, creí que estaba muerto, pero luego movió unas patas debilmente. Muerto, no, pero sí estaba traumatizado; dos de las patas estaban rotas.

El dia siguiente, mientras lo examinaba de nuevo, cayó de la corteza a mi escritorio. Aquí está, todavía moviéndose un poco:

1. Uno de la familia de los Opiliones.

2. La misma foto, sin las patas largas, para ver mejor la forma del cuerpo.

Tiene 8 patas; es una del tribu de los arácnidos. Y con ese cuerpo de una sola pieza, es uno de los opiliones. Esas dos patas muy largas se usan como órganos sensibles, como usan los insectos sus antenas. Si observas un opilión caminando, verás que van tocando el suelo por adelante con esas patas. Los ojos no les sirven bien para esos detalles.

Pero ese aparato en frente de la boca; ¿qué es? Los opiliones que veo en casa no tienen nada parecido. Se me ocurrió al principio que podría ser algo como una infección por algún hongo, especialmente considerando también las protuberancias en la parte trasera.

Mira lo que aclaró mi microscopio:

3. Un arreglo bastante ordenado, como un enrejado; alguien lo ha llamado un encaje. O una barba de anciano bien cuidado. Demasiado regular como para ser un hongo parásito.

4. Viéndolo más de cerca.

Con esas fotos, y con una búsqueda por imagen y rebuscando en BugGuide y iNaturalist, lo encontré; hay una sub-familia de Opiliones que llevan esos adornos faciales. Este es Dendrolasma mirabile, de la  Sub-familia Ortholasmatinae.

Los miembros de los Ortholasmatinae son entre los más espectaculares y ornamentados de los Dyspnoi. El dorso de la mayoría de las especies está cubierto con tubérculos en forma de yunque, teniendo largos brazos horizontales que se cruzan entre si y forman esquemas geométricas individuales, como peines, cuadros o diseños reticulares finos. En la mayoría de las especies, el tubérculo ocular se extiende, formando una espina larga, teniendo a los lados tubérculos prolongados, unidos en los extremos. Juntos forman una canasta ornamental y compleja encima de los quelíceros. (Axel Schoenhofer)

Eso describe la "canasta" en frente de la boca: ¡son parte del tubérculo ocular! y además el diseño del dorso.

El pobre bichito murió el segundo dia. En otro caso, lo hubiera regresado al sitio de donde lo traje, donde tendría familia.

Bouncy

 I moved a bowl of air plants and woke up a harvestman. With those long, long legs separating it from the plant, it looks as if it were just floating along in the air, bouncing as it goes.

In reflected sunlight, it's two-toned; cream and brown.

Knees up!

The bits of silk on its legs must be spider web remnants; harvestmen don't produce silk.

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Levanté unas plantas del aire y desperté un opilión (también se conocen como segadores o arañas de patas largas, aunque no son arañas). Con esas patas tan largas que lo mantienen separado del sustrato, parece que flotan en el aire, rebotando al caminar.

En la luz reflejada del sol, se ven sus colores; crema y café claro, con una mancha negra,

La seda que se ve en sus patas aquí será restos de una telaraña; los opiliones no producen seda,  ni construyen  telarañas.

Considering how to run

 A centipede was happy – quite!

Until a toad in fun

Said, "Pray, which leg goes after which?"

This raised her doubts to such a pitch,

She lay exhausted in the ditch

Considering how to run. (Anon, 19th century)

I was watching a harvestman walking up my wall. He had eight legs, easier to manage than the 70+ of the centipede, but still somewhat complicated, from my two-legged perspective.

Harvestmen belong to the order of Opiliones.

But, wait! He was only walking with six legs. The second leg on each side is not used for walking, but instead operates as a sensory organ.

He was in no hurry, even with me (not moving, being careful not to breathe on him) a few inches away. With each step, he first stood still, tapping the wall with one of his second legs, like a blind person feeling her way along the sidewalk, tapping her cane. And with reason; the harvestman's eyes are primitive, only able to distinguish between light and dark. And on my wall, there were no constrasts, nothing for the eyes to capture. He was effectively blind.

So he tapped here and there, then when he was sure of his step, moved three legs together; two on one side, one, the middle one (#3) on the other. More tapping, now with the other second leg, then another step, with the opposite group of three legs. (1R, 3L, 4R: then 1L, 3R, 4L)

Harvestmen have a variety of gaits; running, bobbing, walking, stotting (leaping into the air with all , legs airborne, like a fleeing deer), depending on the situation. And they are prone to losing a leg or two (or three), so have to be able to adapt the basic pattern. But no, they don't end up "exhausted in a ditch".

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 Un cienpiés andaba tan feliz

Hasta que la rama, en broma, le preguntó

"Dime, ¿En qué orden mueves las patas?"

Esto le hizo dudar de tal manera

Que cayó agotado en la zanja

Sin saber como caminar.

(Poema anónima, traducida del inglés, siglo 19)

Observaba un Opilión (segador) que subía por mi pared interior. Tenía ocho patas, más fácil de operar que las 70 o más de los cienpiés, pero desde mi punto de vista como bípeda, algo complicado de todas maneras.

Foto: un opilión.

Pero no tanto; caminaba con solo 6 patas. La segunda pata de ambos lados no se usa para caminar; sirve de órgano sensorial.

No tenía prisa el animal, aunque yo estaba muy cerca, manteniéndome sin mover, sin respirar en su dirección. Con cada paso, primero se detenía, palpando la pared enfrente con una segunda pata, como si fuera una persona ciega que examina el camino con su bastón blanco. Y con razón; los ojos del opilión son primitivos y solamente distinguen entre luz y oscuridad. Y en mi pared, todo era luz. El opilión, en efecto, andaba a ciegas.

Así que palpaba la pared hasta estar seguro de su configuración, y entonces adelantaba tres patas a la vez; dos de un lado, el primero y el cuarto, y la tercera pata del otro lado. Palpaba de nuevo, ahora con la segunda pata del lado opuesto, y luego daba otro paso, ahora con las patas opuestas. (La secuencia entonces sería: 1ªDerecha, 3ªIzquierda, 4ªD, luego 1ªI, 3ªD, 4ªI.)

Los opiliones usan una variedad de modos de andar: corriendo, caminando, levantando y bajando el cuerpo, o el salto de rebote (en que las 6 patas se lanzan al aire simultáneamente, como lo hace un venado con sus 4 patas). Y como frecuentemente pierden una o más patas (y no las vuelven a crecer) tienen que adaptarse con facilidad. Y por cierto, no terminan "agotados en la zanja".

Looking for a good book

 A literate harvestman.

"What to read next?"

"Cranford? No, how about this next one?

On offer: Cranford, East of Eden, The World's 100 Best Short Stories, The Cry and the Covenant, and Greenmantle. Well past their sell-by date, he said. Maybe that's why he was checking out my computer last night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Un opilón amante de la lectura.

Fotos; el opilón, buscando algo para leer. 

En oferta: Cranford (1853), Al Este de Edén (Steinbeck, 1952), Los Cien Mejores Cuentos Cortos del Mundo (1927), The Cry and the Covenant (1949), Greenmantle (1916). "Muy viejos," opinó el opilón. Tal vez por eso vino a buscar mejor en mi computadora.

Balm on a rainy night

 So it rains. And blows. And rains. And storms. And rains some more. And I've caught a cold and don't dare go out and get myself wet and chilled. Last night, in desperation, I went out in the rain and ripped up a couple of plants of lemon balm, which grows wild beside my carport. I filled a vase with wet lemon balm; it even still had a few flowers.

Lemon balm flowers, Melissa oficinalis. From base to tip, 8 mm.

I was hoping to find something alive on the plant, maybe even a spider for Arachtober. And yes, there was a slug.

Tiny slug, 1cm long.

And a bunch of green aphids. This one fell off, but I coaxed her back onto a leaf.

There were no spiders, but a miniature harvestman was hiding behind a leaf.

5mm long, with a stripe down her back.

Heading for a better hiding spot.

Bye!

I got up this morning and checked the vase. Neither the slug nor the harvestman is anywhere to be found. The aphids were still there.

(And now, do I have a tiny slug wandering around my kitchen? Or eating my house plants? When he shows up, he's going out into the rain again.)

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Pues llueve. Y sopla un viento fuerte. Y llueve. Y hay tempestad. Y llueve aun más. Y a mí me ha pegado una gripa y no me atrevo a salir a empaparme con agua fria. Anoche, ya harta de mis cuatro paredes, salí en la lluvia y arranqué unas plantas del toronjil (hoja de limón) que siempre crece cerca de la puerta.

Llené un frasco con ramas del toronjil. Todavía tenía unas cuantas flores.

Fotos:

1. La flor de toronjil. De la base al punto de los pétalos mide 8 mm.
2. Una babosa chiquitita, de un cm. de largo.
3. Un áfido verde; había varios. Este se había caído; luego le acerqué una hoja y volvió a subir.
4. Esperaba alguna araña para el grupo de Arachtober, pero en su lugar, hallé este opilón escondido tras una hoja. Mide 5 mm de cola a cabeza. No medí las patas.
5. Aquí se trata de esconder de nuevo.
6. —¡Adiós! — me dice.

Me levanté esta mañana y examiné el toronjil de nuevo. Ni la babosa ni el opilón se pueden ver. Pero siguen allí los áfidos.

(Y ahora, ¿tengo una babosa dando vueltas en mi cocina? ¿O se está comiendo mis plantas caseras? Cuando la encuentro, se irá afuera a la lluvia otra vez.)

Critters, critters, critters

... collected from here and there, some alive, some recently dead. I'm sorting last month's photos, playing catch up.

Harvestman on a house plant (Kalanchoe tomentosa)

Hover fly on yarrow. I'm not sure of the other beetle with the spots. Tyee Spit.

Twin berries, Lonicera involucrata, with an orange fly. Tyee Spit.

A crane fly who died on my windowsill. Aren't those wings pretty?

Looking at you.

Grasshopper on the Oyster Bay shore. Probably Pallid-winged Grasshopper, Trimerotropis sp. Mostly, they jumped away as soon as my shadow came anywhere near; for this one, I crawled up, inch by inch, down at his level. (No shadow!)

Another Oyster Bay grasshopper, same afternoon, same location. But this one didn't wait around for me. He may be a different species, but I can't identify him, and the Pallid-wings are quite variable.

Recently squashed spider. Just the eyes and mustache. One of the mesh web weavers, by the eye arrangement. (See BugGuide)

Water shots next, I think.

And ... it's Aractober again!

I've been saving my spider photos for this; it's Aractober, 2018.

For those who've missed previous years, this is a Flickr group where we each post one spider photo per day for the first two weeks of October, then two a day for the last half, coming up to Hallowe'en. Good fun, great photos; with 246 members so far, we've amassed over 9,200 spider photos. Come see! Come join us!*

Here's my opening entry for this year; a spider I just noticed this afternoon, with her dinner.

16 legs: cellar spider, 8, unfortunate harvestman, 8.

The spider is about 1/4 inch long, not counting the legs, of course.

*Also on Twitter . #Aractober

Leggy

On the underside of an old garden stool.

Harvestman and spider webs.

Bright eyed and thirsty

I'm calling him Sidney, after Terry Pratchett's Sidney Lopsides.

This young 6-legged harvestman showed up three mornings in a row in my kitchen sink, getting a drink. Transferred gently to a damp paper towel, he* clung to it for several hours, then went his way. The third day, yesterday, I convinced him to move to a water-loving cyclamen pot. He didn't come back today.

"Water is fine, thanks!"

It's not harvestman season outside; too wet, too cold, too windy. But the pots on my windowsill will be a good place to rest and recuperate.

I am probably too soft-hearted.

*I'm calling him "he", although he could be female. I'm just guessing. Male and female spiders are easily distinguished by the "boxing gloves" on the male's pedipalps, but although harvestmen are also arachnids, they don't follow this pattern. Male harvestmen (The name implies, masculinity, doesn't it?) tend to have longer legs, and a smaller than the female does. The males' colours are brighter, but when the colours are brown and black, there's not much difference.

A couple of posers

A harvestman came down the wall in front of my desk, and posed there, waiting until I noticed.

Legs and leggy shadows.

Zooming in. She* was very patient, sitting absolutely still while I tried to get all of her in focus.

*Arbitrary choice of pronoun. How do you tell a female harvestman (harvestperson?) from the male? It's difficult. The male has longer legs and a smaller body than the female, but that's hard to calculate, unless you have a pair side by side. And females have a long ovipositor at the back, but usually this is hidden in a sheath, and only extended when they're laying eggs.

Their relatives, spiders, are easier, with the male's "boxing gloves" always held ready for action.

Later, I was preparing the camera for a few shots testing different settings, when this fly dropped in to sit right in front of the lens. I didn't even have to pick up the camera.

A very shallow depth of field got his hair, but not the face in focus. But at least I got the colour of the eyes.

He was not as patient as the harvestman; when I moved the camera, he up and left.

White knees

I was busy taking photos of a starfish in my tank, when I looked up and saw this harvestman on the lamp base overhead. Good thing I had the camera in hand; one quick shot, and he took off, down a crack and out of reach.

Wide photo, from toe to toe.

Zooming in. I'd never noticed the white knees before. Maybe the blue lamp base brings them out.

And I went back to aiming at the starfish.

(And it looks like I need to dust a bit more often.)

Been through the wash

I took a blouse out of the washer and hung it to dry. This daddy-long-legs came running out of a fold. Good thing I used cold water and the gentle cycle.

Not a speck of dust on him, shining colours.

He's missing a leg and two half legs, at least.

I saw him last night, roaming placidly around the bathroom; he looked duller then. Today, the first thing I saw was the flash of brick red. And he was panicking; I don't think I've ever seen a harvestman run as fast as he was before.

I caught up with him when he paused for breath on the bathtub surround.

With the one remaining long leg stretched out.

I wonder: does he run faster with shorter legs? Do those long, wobbly legs slow down his brothers?

Momentary distraction

I've had a very exciting day, beachcombing and finding two different mystery creatures. They've been made comfortable here, had their portraits done, and have met their tankmates. I still have to sort photos, trim a video, and do some id work. I'll have some of that ready for you tomorrow.

For now, I'm too tired to see straight.

Here's a harvestman who scrambled across my feet while I was taking photos of a squirmy, tentacled something or other:

Unusually, around here, he has all eight of his legs.

Zooming in.

And then I zoomed back to the critter leaving a slime trail around the walls of my tank.

Update: he's a male Phalangium opilio. Thanks to Christopher.

Hopeful beginnings

The sun came out! And out shopping, we saw a flower bed covered with new shoots. We went to Home Depot and looked at mini-greenhouses, and bought more paving stones for the garden walk. It felt so good!

And then I came home and glued myself to the computer, trying out all the buttons and boxes in Element. I worked on 3 photos, one with a hard colour adjustment, one noisy squirrel, and one easy crop-and-sharpen job. The squirrel photo proved hopeless, but here are the other two.

Miniature harvestman. This had a distinct orange cast; Element took it out nicely. The background colour now matches the original piece of wood.

An older photo; the sky reflected in a corner beside the Ladner docks.

I used auto-adjust on the reflections photo. This almost never works in Picasa or Picnik, but with Element it did, at least on this photo. I don't like their sharpening tool, though; it's too small to control properly.

A Skywatch post.

Do Harvestmen eat strawberries?

Or is this guy just getting a drink from a leftover slug dinner?

And I think I have recovered from yesterday's babysitting, so I'll be back shortly with Sunday's hike.

.

There's no place like it.

We're home. Our Strathcona vacation/housesitting/being burgled stint is over. We're home again.

And the neighbour who promised to keep my garden watered was as good as his word. The leaves are green and glowing, the hostas are blooming, so are the foxgloves, the hydrangea, the creeping jenny, and all the rest. Even the houseplants I set outside while the weather is warm:

Christmas cactus. In the rain.

Raindrops.

The little family of chickadees is practicing togetherness and choral dee-dee-deeing.

The old swimming hole.

The squirrels have found the bucket of sunflower seeds that I just refilled:

Hi! Glad you're back!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some serious stuffing to do.

The spiders are in their places, there are snails on the hostas, and a family of harvestmen have established themselves on the wall behind the lemon balm.

Missing a leg. Good thing he has eight.

And ... we got down to the beach, for the first time in three weeks. Ahhhh!

Sand, sea and sky.

Little green crab.

And lugworm poop.

It's good to be home!
.