Woodpress

On Sunday I took a nice long walk with my good friend Matt. I took pictures. I also got a mild sunburn, but there’s a nice non-burned area on the back of my neck where my camera strap was.

Like some insects and arachnids I’ve worked with, Matt was a very cooperative model. Unlike an insect, he takes requests for poses. (Matt is unlike an insect in several other ways, too.)

Here are another couple pictures of Matt from above.

This is the area where the next few photos were taken:

Some closer photos of the falling water:

Matt found a piece of fabric that someone had apparently left behind. It smelled like suntan lotion, and made a fabulous cape… so naturally he played superhero.

Somehow a couple ants got on the hat Matt was borrowing from my wife. I think they wanted their pictures taken. I only rewarded one of them.

Here’s Matt walking away from me:

We visited a pond with an incredible amount of life in it. I sat in one corner and took pictures of various little critters that showed up while Matt explored the area. Eventually he came back and directed the critters to help me get better photos.

This bug swims upside down under the water. Maybe it thinks the air is the ground, and the water is the atmosphere. I have decided to refer to this confused insect as “6nq umop apisdn”.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these squiddy looking bug critters before. I haven’t tried yet to look it up.

This spider was swimming on top of the water. I took some video of that, but I haven’t watched it yet.

There were a few of these little guys moving around.

Here’s the same guy after crawling out of the water and onto the concrete.

Again, the same guy on the concrete. About the time I took the picture below, Matt made a comment about this being pretty much the way life evolved.

In this picture you can also see some odd little greenish blobbies. Those things were everywhere; floating on top of the water, sitting on the bottom, etc. You can see them in a couple other pictures too. I’m not sure what they are, but I suspect they’re eggs.

We also found a wasp nest. I suspect it had been poisoned and knocked down. After I took this picture, Matt turned over the nest with his foot (I stood a safe distance away) and a couple live wasps came out.

When the wasps came out of the nest, one flew away, and one writhed around in the grass. The writhing wasp is the reason for me thinking they may have been poisoned. Matt suggested that maybe it was a baby and its wings weren’t developed enough for it to fly yet. Here’s a picture of the writhing wasp.

A lock.

Here’s Matt wearing his cape on his head on the walk home.

There are many other pictures from that walk, but this is plenty for now. At the end of the walk, my wife and youngest child came to meet us, then we all went out to eat.