Argiope aurantia

Argiope aurantia is the commonly-called Black and Yellow Garden Spider, or Writing Spider, seen in gardens everywhere. Found these two in the bushes in front of the house.

From the Wikipedia article:

The web of the yellow garden spider is distinctive: a circular shape up to 2 feet in diameter, with a dense zigzag of silk, known as a stabilimentum, in the center. The purpose of the stabilimentum is disputed. It is possible that it acts as camouflage for the spider lurking in the web's center, but it may also attract insect prey, or even warn birds of the presence of the otherwise difficult-to-see web. Only those spiders that are active during the day construct stabilimenta in their webs.

A view of the back of one of them:



And a view of the underside of the other:



Right after I snapped the picture above, the spider dashed out onto the web to grab an insect that flew into the web. You can see Argiope carefully making a mummy out of him to have later for lunch:



It's amazing the amount of activity that takes place in the garden/bug realm that we rarely see.

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Questions and Answers

Most post-Palin/Gibson-interview chatter seems to say that Palin held her own, her one point of hesitation being on the subject of "the Bush doctrine." Charles Krauthammer notes that Charlie Gibson was the one who got it wrong, not Ms. Palin. Krauthammer's last paragraph makes the whole editorial worth reading:

"Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what [the Bush doctrine] is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage."

Follow up: An hour or so after posting the above link to Krauthammer's editorial, I heard an NPR analysis of Palin's reply to Gibson's question about "the Bush doctrine." And they followed the same script -- that Palin didn't know what Gibson was asking for until he explained what "the Bush doctrine" is/was. I mention this, and the above, not in defense of Palin but as an example of how news cycles work and how little actual research is done (sometimes) by the media. Krauthammer was the first to use the phrase "Bush doctrine" and knows better than anyone what it means -- and that there have been four different iterations of that phrase since 9/11. But no one mentions "four" in the news reports. Instead of trying to trip Palin up, Gibson should have stated which version of "the Bush doctrine" he was asking about. And if Palin had been well-prepared, she should have asked, "Which version?" -- and listed the four that Krauthammer lays out.

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Cycle of Life

Just some shots from this morning's juice cycle -- plants from the earth, extract the minerals by juicing, then return the pulp back to the earth to nurture the soil and its residents. I read once where the purpose of plants is to be a conveyance vehicle (in the form of juices) for minerals that are in the soil -- minerals that are essential to human life. I like that picture of a God-given cycle of life. It fits perfectly with Adam's and Eve's original commission to be tenders of the Garden.

Here's what I started with today:



It yielded well over a quart of juice:



About 40 oz. after straining:



Four eight-ounce Ball jars full to drink later, almost eight ounces to drink immediately:



Then dig a hole in the flower beds and return the leftover pulp as a meal for the worms and bio-life in the soil. Cover with dirt and it will disappear within 3-4 days. (Note the volunteer tomato plant coming up on the left of the picture.)



Got a peppermint plant the other day to be able to crush some leaves into the quart jars of (decaf) sun tea I put out each morning. I put it in its own planter to keep it from spreading which it will do if given free rein in a garden:

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Tall Avocado

This is the tallest of the volunteer avocado trees -- over two feet. It may be because it is unencumbered by growth from surrounding shrubs. Most of the others are fighting their way up from under, or alongside, other bushes.

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