Monday, April 14, 2008

unexpected beauty (and some flowers)

We expect flowers to be pretty, but the compost bucket surprised me pleasantly this morning. It was like an arrangement, accidentally. The light through the plastic was pretty, too.





And this one will be harder to see, so I've left clickable thumbnails with bigger images there. We have a couple of sets of Marbleworks, which feature spirally pieces for marbles to go down into, and hyperbolic funnels in which the marbles go around several times before dropping. The box has sat untouched all winter.



Of all the spider webs to find in such a place, there's a funnelweb.

It's on the right, near the box seam.

And flowers... I did expect the flowers to be pretty.





8 comments:

Anet said...

Hi Sandra,
My name is Anet, Unschooling mom of 3 kids ages:21, 16, and 8. My oldest is now in college.
I've been checking out your blog, of course I've read tons of your stuff throughout homeschool world.

I love the beauty in the compost bucket. It's nice to find unexcepted joy. And the spider was digging funnel land! Your flowers are lovely, We live in Michigan and are not seeing the tulips and daffs. yet. It's a pleasure to meet you!

Happy Campers said...

OK...was it THE funnelweb spider that's so dangerous? What a funny place to build it's web...around other like-minded structures. Tee hee hee.

Unknown said...

They were all beautiful! I forget that it's just now becoming spring in ABQ - here in Tucson spring has come & gone, I'm afraid, since we're predicted to have highs in the 90s most of this week. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

the compost pile is strangely pretty.

Arlene,
Lakewood florist

Sandra Dodd said...

I didn't see the spider, so I don't know. Do I need another dangerous spider here? I DO NOT. We already have had brown recluses in the house (I've been bitten once here and once years back somewhere else), and we have black widows outside in the cinderblock walls.

I did see (and send to spider heaven) a kind of spider I'd never seen before a few weeks back, but not in that room--by the back door.

I dumped the marble works parts out into the shopping cart that lives in our yard (from two owners back of the nearest grocery store; they told Marty to get rid of it when he worked there and he brought it home). They look good in that red cart! And I didn't see a spider. I'll hose them off, let them sit out a while, and bring them back in.

Those white tulips with the sunlight through them just Lit UP, and the yellow one is between them and the door.

On the compost bucket, I wish the lemon had been turned over, but I didn't touch it. It was a natural arrangement. The reeds were the old parts of snake grass I was rooting and had moved to pots on the other side of the sink. Some little baby reeds were forming with the roots. I'll bring photos of those when they're photogenic.

Christa said...

Such pretty blooms.

Our trees only have buds here in Massachusetts and the bulbs are just poking out of the ground. So much to look forward to.

And I forgot about our marble run pieces. I'll strew them tomorrow! Hopefully, sans spiders.

Katy said...

"OK...was it THE funnelweb spider that's so dangerous?"

New Mexico's funnel webs are just harmless grass spiders. Except for the occasional stow-away with human travelers, our only venomous spiders are the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse.

Funnel web spiders LOVE my trumpet vines, I think their webs are so pretty. I just love that it chose to make its funnel among funnels! Very cool!

Katy

Sandra Dodd said...

Katy, I'm so glad you know that! Thank you. I feel better.

I've hardly ever seen a funnel web and didn't think much about it, because it was so rare.

Sometimes we get a big web in our yard here, with an orangy/brown spider (big one) in the middle. Those are classic spider webs, like in cartoon, on Halloween decorations. Do you know what those are? The webs can be three feet across and really symmetrical and the spider sits in the middle like a cartoon spider.

I know black widow webs well. They kinda catch you. They're STRONG. Not artsy, though. Just kinda haphazard in some corner of the yard. Sometimes just one or two strands (which might be all it takes of that stuff).

There was a Tarzan movie years ago where Jane gets stuck in a spider web in a cave. oooh, sexy!

The jungle was RIGHT on the edge of the desert. Like desert ends at the jungly treeline. 1930's movie spider, I guess (or 40's).