First Signs of Fall: Forage 'Ye Fennel Will Ye May

Been eyeing this lovely spot of wild fennel by the edge of the train tracks on my walking route back from the Atherton Library, for a month or more now. I know Californians who forage for this floral treat. The bulb, seeds, flowers and pollen are all fodder for the native gourmet's kitchen. I'm not ready to take the chance on roadside produce. The creek below is sprayed for mosquito larve and there's also the potential that some other, toxic, little plant might creep in with the greenery. I'm better off sticking with the Sunday Farmer's Market downtown.

But I haven't found that sharp anise scent at the agricultural stalls. Last summer I cropped a big bunch and brought it home for a bouquet, which I plumped down outside in a big old aluminum watering pot, a la "Country Living Magazine". My husband, a much more orderly person than I am, was seriously displeased. It was a sticky, messy visitor, and he traded me some favor (not dishes - he already does a good deal of the housework around here!) to get me to pitch the pots contents after a couple of days on our outdoor supper table on the patio.

But this year I'd spied it again. Just as yellow and just as strong-scented. Ever since I first spotted it, I'd been considering the possibility of a bouquet to decorate the driveway. I was returning a stack of well-read books two days ago, when I saw the road crew pull up with shovels and rakes.

"Are you going take out the yellow flowers?" I cried.

They admitted the 'yellow flowers' were indeed their goal. When I returned with my camera in hand, fifteen minutes later, they'd already made inroads on my photo-bouquet. While I snapped my pictures, they were already bundling the branches into shocks, and leaning them against the metal fence for the guy with the truck. Meanwhile the seeds rained down on the heavy, adobe soil.

The fennel, in all it's strong-scented, sticky, yellow glory will be back next summer.

Take a better peek at this altered mass of yellow glory, by clicking on the picture above. If you're a regular reader of this journal, you might recognize some of the visitors I've added.

Araneus diadematurs, At Home in a Smaller World

Please CLICK ON THIS PICTURE To see all the lovely details

What am I in a spider's world? A cloud that passes over her sky? A tremendous gust of air? Is something smaller than the bud of my ear-buds, aware of me as a threat, a presence or with any kind of interest?

I encountered this little beauty hanging out on one of her own silky threads on the bathroom wall. That's usually where I meet up with her kind, right about tooth-brushing time.

She's commonly known as a "Cross Spider". I was so pleased with myself because I recognized her. That's because one of her sisters came to visit my porch on Halloween night. My trick-or-treat Cross spider was much, much bigger than this little darling. I was able to see her markings with my own eyes, but for this babe I couldn't tell what she was until I enlarged the photo in Photoshop. A magnifying glass would have done the trick as well.

I posted pictures of both these girls to the spider identification web site, where both were identified by entomologists who frequent the site. (It's a very to join this site for free, and to post your photos there .) This tiny lady was verified by a charming man, "Bug Eric". He has a great blog (http://bugeric.blogspot.com/) that really brings out the romantic side of insects, spiders and other arthropods, and the people that work with them.

* One of the tricker-or-treaters pointed her out and after that all the kids came to see her.

Waiting for an Introduction

CLICK ON THE IMAGE on the left, to see more of this archnids charms.

This long-legged beauty greeted me in the bathroom last night, while I was brushing my teeth. She jumped a little when I made a noise and scuttled back into the corner. Then she popped out again to, check me out I guess. Do spiders actually notice us as fellow creatures, or are we simply a big noise to them?

Is she a Callobius in the Amaurobiidae, or Tengellidae family of arachnids? I think she looks most like the photos of Ground Sac Spiders - CorinnidaeAmaurobiidae

Sami and Catnip at Spider identification.org thinks she might be one of those. We're waiting for more input. At this point she's still a bit of mystery.

And, typical of her sisterhood, she's crept off to find a more reclusive habitat. I doubt I'll see her again.

I altered the original photo a good deal. I created the colorful tiles from the colors in this red-legged beauty's body as viewed by the mosaic filter in Photoshop CS4.