Good Morning Spider

During my late summer walks with the pups I discovered a new neighbor living in one of the trees along my route. I don't think anyone else noticed her because no one ever looks up like me (I do this constantly, too. You never know what's going on above your head otherwise.)

She had built her own beautiful house and was thriving there, probably because no one had noticed her.

Here's a somewhat fuzzy close up of my new neighbor. She's a golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila clavipes), also known as a banana spider here in Florida. Her web really does look golden in the sunlight -- I just couldn't get a shot of it. She's a wonderful web spinner, and I look forward to seeing her every morning.

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Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel

Survived Another One

I hope you all are having a lovely holiday. Here it was exactly as I expected, only a little worse. I'm trying to be grateful it wasn't much worse. Thanks to the bomb cyclone my favorite person got stuck in Denver for 5-1/2 hours, but late on Christmas Eve afternoon her flight finally took off. Thousands didn't, so I am very grateful she didn't have to spend Christmas Day in an airport. Meanwhile, I suggested to my guy that we leave an hour early because the airport was going to be a disaster area. He felt confident a half an hour early would be time enough (the man has no concept of time.) Turns out a disaster area would have been pleasant by comparison. We used all of our spare time stuck in traffic. They closed all levels of the parking garage because it was full of people coming and going. We went in anyway, and circled all the full lots for what seemed like forever, but couldn't find a parking spot. Getting out of the garage was then impossib

Rayen

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