Life with Jake and Maggie
I wasn’t eating my curds and whey, but I did notice a beautiful specimen of the Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) in a sunny spot in front of the house. The light was just right so I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures.
First a dorsal view…
And a side view….
If you look closely you can see the red and black mass she is feeding on – apparently the remains of an unlucky insect that got a little too close.
You can read more about this beautiful arachnid here.
Hey y’all,
We went to the vet on Friday and he took our stiches out. He told Mom that our incisions looked good and that everything was OK. But the best thing he told her was that we could go swimming again! Yay!
So today Dad and Savannah took us to Cheraw State Park again for a swim. First we went on a nature walk through the woods around the lake, and then we got on the boardwalk and ran like crazy!
Jake couldn’t wait to swim so he jumped right in. Dad had to haul him out of the water by his collar!
Then we found this magic leaf just floating in the air! It was amazing.
Then when Dad and Savannah looked a little closer they spotted the spider web that was holding it up.
So it wasn’t really magic but still pretty cool.
Hey y’all. We had an interesting week this week. Mom and Dad took us on a trip the the vet. They said we were going to get “fixed”. They left us there to spend the night. It was kind of scary at first when they took us in the back with all of the other dogs and cats. Each one had his own little room, and there was a lot of barking. We relaxed after a bit, and then the vet took us to a little room where we took a nap. When we woke up from the nap we were still very sleepy. We slept really good all night.
The next morning, Dad came and took us home. We sure were glad to get back home. But Dad said we have to go back to the vet in 10 days to get our stiches out. We don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound too scary….
Jake and Maggie, home from the vet
Maggie
Jake
We had not seen Loner for three days and were begining to worry that she was lost, had been hit by a car, or had otherwise met some untimely end. But Donna happened to need something from the cellar, and when she opened the door, Loner bolted out and dashed up the stairs into the daylight. She was obviously very happy to be released from confinement, but amazingly she was not hungry. There must have been a few mice down there for her to snack on.
And here is the really amazing thing – while trapped in the cellar she found her voice. Previously she had been mostly silent, purring at the most. But now she has become a vocal cat, meowing in a soft, squeaky voice that is very cute.
Some chihuahua cuteness, no words needed.
Daisy snuggled up in the pillows
YUM! Donna made us a nanner puddin for dessert tonight. This is the real deal, from the recipe on the box of Nilla Wafers. With real meringue, baked to a golden brown. Such warm, gooey banana goodness!
We’re not exactly sure what we did to deserve this extraordinarily wonderful treat, but we hope she will tell us so we can do it again.
While the rest of us are wilting from the heat, prissy little Daisy is thoroughly enjoying it. She has even stopped shivering!
She loves to soak up the sun while hiding in the monkey grass.
This is the time of year Daisy loves to be outside the most.
Hey Y’all, (pant, pant) It’s me, Jake (pant, pant).
Dad just told Maggie and me that he (pant, pant) called the VET and got us a ‘pointment to get us fixed (pant, pant). I didn’t even know we were broken (pant, pant). He said we are going back to the VET on September the 14th (pant, pant) and that we will get to spend the night there. Yay! I hope they have air conditioning (pant, pant).
Boy, it has been hot here lately. The old A/C unit froze up yesterday, so I had to thaw it out. It is running OK now, thank goodness. The weatherman says its going to get cooler in the next few days.
I saw this New Yorker cartoon on another blog and it kinda fits the mood this week. All the critters around here have been a bit lazy this week – including the humans.
I hope the weatherman is right….
An Eastern Box Turtle lumbered across the old homestead yesterday, pausing long enough to pose for some pictures. These turtles (scientific name Terrapene Carolina carolina) are common in the Carolinas (hence the name, I guess). When I was young we would sometimes find one and keep it as a pet for a week or two. We would put it in a terrarium with a water bowl and feed it lettuce and crickets. Because they are rather boring in captivity, we would always release them back into the wild.
Box turtles are cool reptiles because they have a hinged plastron (the lower part of the shell) and can close it up snugly against the upper shell when they feel threatened. Its a very effective defense mechanism. When Jingles was about two years old she found a box turtle in the back yard and barked at it for hours until she lost her voice. When she eventually lost interest, the turtle opened up and went on its merry way, none the worse for the experience.
This one was a female. You can tell because the female has a flat plastron, while the male’s is concave to allow it to more easily mount the female during mating. (Sorry, I didn’t think to take a photo at an angle to show the plastron.)
I did learn something from this visitor: taking a good photo of a box turtle requires a lot of patience.
Do you have any interesting turtles where you live?
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