Dark lady

So, the other day I noticed this was living two feet from my front door, and very close to where Mojito hangs out on my little porch area:

I am an extreme arachnophobe, as it happens. (By the way, that white thing is some extra-long twisty-tie thingies. They fell into her web when I was staking tomato plants in my containers, and I declined to attempt to retrieve them.)

I started thinking it looked a lot like a female black widow (Latrodectus hesperus). I'd had one in my art studio in my former house. (That was not a good day.)

I put the camera on zoom and got as close as I dared, took a pic, then went to my computer to see what I could see.

When I purposely overexposed the photo (below), the red hourglass abdominal markings became very obvious. 

Ugh!! 

I kept Moji off the porch and tried for a couple of days to find someone who might catch and relocate her. I detest spiders, but I don't think any part of nature should be killed unnecessarily. (Well...maybe mosquitoes.)

No takers. (Perhaps no surprise there.) So I got a dog-park-neighbor-guy to come kill it for me. Ironically, it turns out his profession is pest control, and he's seen plenty of black widows. But when he saw mine, he stopped in his tracks and said, "Whoa...that is big."

So now that she has shuffled off this mortal coil and become an ex-menace, I can brag about how I had the biggest, most badass black widow around.

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Now we are desperately in need of some fuzzy cuteness, aren't we?

This is the puppy a friend adopted recently. His name is Hoshi:

Legs-up napping.

Rumi's not stuck, in need of help--he was just nonchalantly hanging out like that all afternoon.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Just photos today (and Mojito baby pics!)

Here's the problem with a really nice (digital) camera: the instruction manual is a book. That's what happens when cameras are more like computers these days. And it's a book I never have time to read, not that it will make for pleasant reading in the first place. All the photos I've been taking lately of my artwork are coming out terrible, and it's surely because neither I nor The Husband (much as he would like to think so) really have a clue what we're doing with all the settings and such on the camera. My goal is now to try to find the time to learn enough from the manual to at least remove all current (mostly inadvertent) settings and get it back to tabula rasa.

So, in lieu of artwork today, I bring you some photos...

After nearly two feet of snow, the sun came out for two days and started meltin' with a mission. My friend Ann and I went for a hike...and our shoes will never be the same.

And now for something completely different (say in Monty Python voice): The Husband finally found our dog Mojito's baby pics! I've been wanting to have them for some time now. When I look at Mojito now, four years old, very noble-looking and almost wolf-like sometimes, it's hard to believe he was ever that little wooly bear cub. He came to us as one of our foster dogs (we used to foster rescued Goldens) at the tender age of about 3 months (with the name of Biscuit, ha ha) and the moment we saw him (he gave us a skeptical look, which he still sports frequently) there was no question we'd be keeping him. He came from a bad situation and still has a few phobias, but he's mostly just fine now.

*****PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: PLEASE SPAY/NEUTER YOUR PET, LEARN ABOUT AND BOYCOTT PLACES THAT SELL PUPPY-MILL PUPPIES AS "PRODUCTS" (TO CEASE DEMAND), AND PLEASE ADOPT INSTEAD OF BUYING...UNTIL THERE ARE NO MORE COMPANION ANIMALS SUFFERING AND BEING EUTHANIZED FOR MERE LACK OF A HOME. THANK YOU.*****

Mojito's on the left here, supervising Jazz's ripping up of the dog bed:

*****INTERMISSION*****

And now, take a deep breath, and...

Prepare thyself for the killer cuteness!:

Didn't I warn you?

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com