Labor Day weekend

My family had a quiet Labor Day weekend but it was relaxing. I hope yours was as relaxing as ours. Sometimes it’s just the simple things in life, like spending time together and quiet mornings that gives your soul the rest it needs.

Here’s a few things from my life this past few days and a monster spider I found in my art studio!

I just love Saturday mornings, don’t you? My son is so into these Warriors books right now and that makes me happy. Zoey sleeping at his feet.

This is what has been happening on the front porch all this summer. Meet Mama Dove. I call her Mama for short. We’ve become friends.

Below, is Mama Dove’s third brood this summer. She’s nested on my front porch in my ferns each time, one fern twice. I took this photo a couple weeks ago. Each time, there were two perfect little eggs in the nest.

Then this was just taken a few days ago. They grow so incredibly fast!

As we were leaving on Sunday afternoon for a Sunday drive and for some tasty Mexican food, I was first out the door. I always check on the babies and they were gone! I just happen to look in the front yard and saw movement. I stepped closer and the baby got a down and dirty flying lesson! I think I scared the poor thing into flying up high in a branch of our very large Tulip Poplar tree.

Up there waiting was either Mama or Papa. Over in a Mimosa tree I saw the other baby with the other parent. I was so happy to see the babies as they left. Mama got pretty used to me looking at her as she sat on her nests for all the summer. I got some very up close and personal photos and she also got used to me carefully watering my fern with a cup. I tried not to spook her, only once did she fly away but was back within a few minutes. I felt like she was sharing her special moments with me by allowing me to witness the beauty of nature.

Sunday, after the quick goodbye to the dove family we jumped in the Jeep for a Sunday drive. Who remembers those? The price of gas has been high for so long, they all but left the country. But surprisingly gas has gone way down and so we took full advantage of the low prices and the heat for a topless ride – the Jeep, not me! Nobody wants to see all this…

Oh and before I go, I promised to show you the giant monster spider. I first saw this guy crawling up the basement wall behind the freezer. I tried to get its picture (much to my husbands horror) but he was really fast and I have to admit, I really didn’t want him jumping on me. So for over a week, I’ve been on the look out for him.

Now, I use my basement all the time. My art studio is down there and I feed the cats down there and I sit under my hair dryer down there. It’s a busy place, for both people and critters. I walked down there Sunday night to dry my hair, I have an old fashioned sit down dryer you see at the hair salons. I’m always looking at the floor, because honestly you never know what will be down there. I’ve found lizards, mice, snakes. yes snakes as in plural.

That’s when I saw him. Only this time, sadly he had bought the farm. He was all scrunched up. He still was monolithic compared to the normal spiders I see down there. I don’t mind the wolf spiders, they eat the brown recluses. The basement is the only place where we have the wolf spiders, the rest of the house is brown recluse heaven. Well, just take a look at how big he is.

Like I said, he was scrunched up so I had to carefully pry his little legs out to get the photo of how big he actually was. Can you imagine this guy running at you? I think he could wear my shoes!

Seriously, when he wasn’t dead and was standing on all eight legs, I’ll bet he was an inch tall! You wouldn’t believe all the comments I got on my Facebook page about this. I think it’s comical how afraid people are of spiders. Most spiders are beneficial. My friend Kelly always says, “you know they’ve probably got friends” But she’s one of those that will burn the house down to kill the spider! Of course, I tagged her on my spider photos on Facebook… heh heh… Anyway, there’s my monster spider story. 😀

I’m putting together another Studio Gardens video tour for the blog this week. Plus, I’ve got a couple more paintings to share and other stuff. So come back and see me! Bye for now.

If you’re new to my blog and website have a look at my ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts in the form of expressionism. If you’re interested in my art, I have a newsletter mailed about once a month that gives you special status for invitations, birthday greeting and more. Sign up here for it.