Odd bug or something

I saw this bug or larva today, and i have no clue what kind it is or what it will turn into. I'm guessing it's making a cocoon and getting ready to change into something else. You can probably tell how small it is, barely noticeable without the macro lens. I know i am taking a lot of pictures of the insect life of River Falls, and should be saving it for when it's snowing out and there isn't anything but white to take pictures of, but i just enjoy the macro photography so much more.

bad weekend, so here is a bunny

I've had a pretty bad weekend, so i thought we could all use a picture of one of my rabbits being really cute. This is Emily stuffing her face with romaine lettuce, which they love.
Unrelated, but interesting to me at least. After the huge drought and heat, it has rained like crazy. Big storms the last couple of nights passed through and things are turning very green, but also damp.

Sprouting bird seed

When i took the picture of the sunflower, i noticed a pile of birdseed that had spilled, and with all the rain it had started to sprout. The seeds had just been sitting on rocks, but with all the rain we had been having they just started to grow. Thankfully the rain has let up and it seems we will have some days of sun, but we didn't get nearly as hard as the places south that had been hit a lot harder.

Wet sunflower

This is a sunflower i just noticed today, i think with all the rain it grew up pretty quick. It looks so alien this up close, and it's pretty young and small, it just doesn't look like it. It's barely bigger than the tip of my thumb. You can tell it's still wet from the rain that keeps happening each day, but thankfully no flooding up here.

Rain

This is a bowl on my deck. We had finally gotten rain after the big drought, lots of it actually. Not as much as south of here like down by Winona and LaCrosse, which got about 11 inches in a twenty four hour period. I really like how the raindrop got caught here. I was watching the huge drops actually make the level of the water in the bowl go down, the drops hit with such force that it made more water splash out than went in.

Pumpkin

I was out back and noticed this pumpkin on my plant that lasted the heat and drought. It was kind of hidden under some leaves of the plant and the wheelbarrow. It's a ghost pumpkin (i believe that is the name) and that kind of makes me happy. I had tried to get these to grow before, but only the orange ones would grow, so this is nice. Inside they look just like the other pumpkins, but have a white or bluish skin. I'm curious how many are going to be good from this plant, but this is the first one i have seen. It's about the size of two fists held together. Not very big yet, but it did surprise me.

River

Here is one of the rivers in town (i forget which fork it is), it is quite a ways under a bridge but you can't tell from this picture. I love how clear the water is and it's very shallow too, only between ankle and mid calf. This is the one that kind of winds it's way around town, and meets up with the other fork which is a good deal bigger.

...and the spider up close

So here is the spider up close. This is the one on the right of the previous photo, just happened to line up right against the window in all it's glory. ;)

Spider mates

Here are the two spiders in the nest. It's kind of funny that the web is right against the window, i can get a pretty good view of them from there. It's really hard to clean the outsides of these windows too, as the bushes are pretty big and i can't reach them to clean them. I miss the new windows i had put in at my last house, they flipped in and made cleaning the outsides of them really easy. I'm not sure the type of spiders these are, they have a more pointed head then the ones i have seen in the house, as you will probably see when i post the close up pictures.

Green bug

This is one of the bugs that is in the web of the spider i had taken a picture of earlier. I have no clue what kind of bug that is, although i did pick up a field guide to North American insects and spiders. I just love the colors of this one, and have seen them live around before. They glint really wonderfully in the sun when flying around. I also noticed that the spider in that huge web now has a mate. I got some pictures of that, which i will show later. On a good note, two storms in a row happened today, both pretty good, and hopefully the drought is over now.

Road and bridge work

This is a section in town where they are doing some major road work and some work on the bridge to the left of the picture. A while ago people were really vocal about the timing of this work, how it would make it harder getting around. Then the 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. Now, not so much.

Dry front yard

Wow, look at that lush yard. This is what a drought looks like. I've been unable to properly water my lawn as i have some plumbing problems i still need fixed, and as of a few days ago there is a ban on watering your lawn. The city well has dropped to very low levels, and we have had almost no rain this summer. There were two thunderstorms yesterday, lots of thunder and lightning, but the heavy rain seems to have missed here a bit. I don't know how close to a record this is, but it's pretty bad. All the big rains have gone too far north or south of here to help much.

Training camp

Here is a picture of the field the Kansas City Chiefs practice on. A couple things to note, look at how green the grass is on the field compared to closer to the camera. We have been having a severe drought and i see them watering a lot this summer. Almost all the rain that has come by has just missed us or dropped almost nothing that would even make a dent. The other point is that this training camp is featured on a show on HBO called Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Kansas City Chiefs. I'm not much one for watching football, more playing it really, but it has been interesting to see this small town on a show like that, it looks quite nicer for one. ;) There are no people on the field when i took this, i haven't timed it right to be there when anything is going on, but i get antsy around big crowds in heat like this too.

Spider in the web

This is the spider in the corner of it's web, kind of hard to see, but that is the best i could get without disturbing it. This is the spider that molted from the other picture, but i'm not sure what kind of spider it it. I do think it's one that can bite and not be too pleasant, so i gave it plenty of room.

Spider molt

This is the shed skin from a spider that I just noticed living near a window of mine, outside not inside. I just found it so interesting looking i had to get a picture of it and share. The spider itself is living in a corner of a rather large web, several feet across at least, and is really hard to get a picture of where he is, but i will try.

Ant

This is an ant that i saw crawling on my computer the other day. I'm not sure what type of ant that is, but i don't see many of them around here, it's mostly the smaller red ones. I find it funny now that my first thought when seeing bugs is to run for my camera and macro lens so i can get pictures of them instead of wanting to get rid of it. I had a cricket in my kitchen the other night, and it took me about an hour to find him, and then catch him so i could take him outside. Not that my house is bug infested, in case that is what you are thinking. ;)

more hot and dry

This is a picture of one of the hosta flowers, and how i feel when i have to go out in the heat. The leaves are doing pretty good, but some are getting burned. The grass is doing the worst, but not being able to water it is a problem, the funny part is that the dandelion greens are doing fine, so there is that at least. ;)