Justfolk's photos

No sooner had I made the trap for fruit flies, they started visiting. Little did they know. Heh heh.

Another butterfly in our backyard. While our supper was cooking, this Cabbage White settled on the waxball bush catching the low sun. (I call it waxball; some call it snowberry. You may know it as Symphoricarpos albus. You got to call it sumpin'. [Sing that like Bob.]) If the poor Cabbage White had a better name, it'd probably be one of our most appreciated butterflies. The name refers to its (granted: bad) habit of laying eggs on Brassicas and thus gobbling up what we want to eat. But it's still pretty.

Okay, okay: it's just a bunch of chicken fat congealed over the juices I took from the pan I cooked some chicken thighs in. I save that stuff for making rice or soups and so on. This is what yesterday's chicken fat looked like today before I threw the fat away and made rice with the liquid. But it looks to me like an aerial photo of a lead in heavy ice, a polynya.

That what my neighbour said as he looked out this morning at me hanging clothes on the line: fine day on clothes. Yes. Fine. Indeed.

Over half a century ago, I was a teenager and I started to learn the names of the local butterflies. I had a poor ability for carrying what I learnt from summer to summer since I was cramming my brain with all manner of other things in between. Eventually i forgot almost all of them. And, thus, in my retirement, my dotage, I've been trying again to learn them. I was sitting in the somewhat cool shade underneath our deck this afternoon when this fellow landed nearby. It may be the most common one in our backyard. I call it the Yellow swallowtail but I know (now) that it is officially something like the Canadian tiger swallowtail. Or so I think anyway.

I came out the basement door and saw this, a White admiral butterfly sunning himself. Luckily I had the camera, but he didn't stay long enough for me to get a closer picture.

A couple of years ago we stopt mowing the grassy strip between our driveway and the next-door neighbour's. As a result all sorts of interesting things have shown up. Last year my wife noticed a "volunteer" Spirea had started there and this year it has bloomed.

A newish Moon, four days old, setting not too long after sunset over our street.

The New Moon was bright enough to see in the day sky today. This was about 90 minutes before sunset.

This tiny thing and a, uhh, colleague were hanging out on the leaves of our dahlia this evening. I have no real idea what they are but I suspect fruit flies. In case you're interested in how big he was: about 2mm from nose to arse end, the wings adding another mm or so. I will now return to considering the air blowing from my fan.

The same four-spot chaser as in the previous picture.

This guy was being a good neighbour and eating lots of flying insects that were trying to suck blood from us this afternoon.

I saw two men working a few hives next to the community garden where I have a plot, so I stopt by to chat. It turns out I know the one with the smoker.

This is the biggest of the freshly set apples on our backyard apple tree, a tree that some years produces only a single apple, or none at all. Last year it produced five or six dozen, all good eating apples. I'm hoping this year will be as good. This morning i noticed there were a half dozen small fruit, this one being the biggest: it's two or three cm across.

There is a bridge in St John's that crosses over the outlet from a pond, about a km long and called aptly Long Pond. Car traffic over the bridge is usually pretty fast. And the bridge turns too, so people in the cars never actually see over the rail to much of the water below. But there is a sidewalk and you can lazily walk across the bridge, hanging your head over that rail, or pointing your camera down to the equally lazy water. Or lazy water most of the time. Thus this during a time of lazy river this afternoon.

Part of me reflected in the shiny dresser I had taken my old X100 camera out of. I decided this was a good picture to start using the X100 again with.

Early this morning I saw this carcase in our driveway. And a while later I went out to photograph it. I was there before the flies' interest was piqued, but well after the killer -- who I assume was the white cat we have seen hanging out there -- had left the scene. Not even the crows had discovered this tidy little morsel yet. It is a vole. Or *was* one, having now been separated from its arvicoline spirit. By the way, this was about 15cm (like six inches) long.

Two fikes fluhing. Two fies flucking. Oh, you know.