The nearly spent orbs of the bee balm appear to be floating like small gas station satellites. The Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird approaches like a tiny plane looking for a spot to refuel.

They have all finally arrived. Right on cue the cicadas have amassed their counterparts for their summer symphony. The same time every year they all gather round for their summer performance. Tonight is the first night I’ve heard so many. One thing that is different this year is that they have a backdrop of crickets. My Mom always said that the crickets are a sign of fall. To have them both on stage at the same time is a bit puzzling. I don’t remember them in the previous two years of our living here. But yet, there is no mistaking them. The crickets sound like a soft violin backdrop for the chit-chit-chitting back and forth of the cicadas. Talk about a soothing sound to lull one to sleep ... yawn... I can feel my eyelids drooping sitting here typing with the windows open for maximum volume.

Sorry, Colorado, right now you seem pretty boring in comparison to my life here. Fireflies in June/July; then cicadas in August. Bear, turkeys, deer, and coyotes (we heard a pack with pups twice over the weekend very close) and who knows what else.

This evening Rick was in Philly on business and I took the dogs for a walk. Myrtle and the Fab 5 were down at the end of the street. All five cubs were up a large tree in a neighbor’s yard. The dogs were well behaved and we just watched as each cub made their way down the tree and off to Mom Myrtle. Wonderful. How many people can say they saw a mother bear with her five cubs on a routine walk down the street where they live?

This Great Spangled Fritillary has been visiting over the past few days.

For the next few days I am going to bring you a photo from my garden. Most of them will contain a creature or bug of some kind. Today’s photo is of what I call “the african mask bug.” To me his body pattern looks like an african tribal mask.

I know, I know. Most people find spiders creepy. I don’t mind them as long as a) they don’t jump on me b) I don’t run into their webs unknowingly. Last week a large spider of unknown species (but I think it may be a Garden Orb Weaver) claimed our sliding door to the deck as its home. You saw the web in a previous post. The spider is still here. And,  it’s still building its web every night. Unfortunately, this is the door we always let the dogs out and use ourselves most of the time. Each and every night it spins an elaborate web. Every morning finds the web gone (except for the morning when Rick walked into it) and the spider retreats into the door track above. Sleeping I guess, or whatever spiders do.

It’s fast too. The other night we went swimming in the pool. The web was not there when we went out. A half hour later upon coming back in to the house I walked smack into its newly completed web. It’s a strong web too because I didn’t really damage it. Thank God the spider was not right in the middle like it usually is.

You may be bored by the following photos, but I thought it was kind of fun to take a photo of each web. They are all different. Which one gets your vote for the best one?

Web for Wednesday, July 16th

Web for Thursday, July 17th

Web for Friday, July 18th

Web for Saturday, July 19th

Web for Sunday, July 20th

Web for Monday, July 21st (this one is a bit sparse and messy)

Last night the spider got a very late start. I only managed to snap its photo while in the process of spinning. We watched it for a while but it didn’t seem comfortable with the light on, so we let it be

I know most people would either kill it (no!!) or remove it, but neither Rick or I can bear to do it. It seems harmless enough and doesn’t cause any problems (unless you forget it’s there) so we decided to just let it be and see how long it keeps this up. I find myself looking forward to each night’s new design.

The little old web maker itself: