random pics that YOU have taken.......

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mgatepi

Holy smoke those are big Spiders!!
You need to get the shotgun out!!

They are the type that make honking huge webs that you (I) don't want to run into face first, although their standard procedure if something big gets the web is to climb up into the trees (or whatever). The bodies can get big , like nickle and ever quarter sized big, but they don't really spread their legs out much. What I do like is that around here, when the sun comes up, they take their web down and hide during the day. The garden spiders that Jolly posted get much bigger if you take their leg-span into account, easily silver dollar big, and they hang out during the day.

But all of them pale in comparison to this guy that I found while mowing one day. Fortunately, they are pretty timid.




for some size reference


next to the toe of my rubber boot for size reference


I've even seen a "tarantula hawk" wasp which was pretty cool. It was easily 2-3 inches long, but then I guess if you use tarantulas for baby food, you probably need to be bigger than a regular wasp.
This is a bad pic because he wasn't interested in letting me get very close, and didn't sit still much, so this is a crop.

[Evans, Marv]

I've even seen a "tarantula hawk" wasp which was pretty cool. It was easily 2-3 inches long, but then I guess if you use tarantulas for baby food, you probably need to be bigger than a regular wasp.
This is a bad pic because he wasn't interested in letting me get very close, and didn't sit still much, so this is a crop.
[/QUOTE]

I was out on my patio one time last year & saw movement in the corner of my eye. Looked closer & it was a tarantula hawk dragging a tarantula much bigger than it was. It dragged ir around in the back yard for twenty minutes or so, then down to the end of the patio (70 ft.) and around the back of the house. Last time I saw it, it was dragging the spider across the yard. I couldn't believe the endurance of the thing.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

I was out on my patio one time last year & saw movement in the corner of my eye. Looked closer & it was a tarantula hawk dragging a tarantula much bigger than it was. It dragged ir around in the back yard for twenty minutes or so, then down to the end of the patio (70 ft.) and around the back of the house. Last time I saw it, it was dragging the spider across the yard. I couldn't believe the endurance of the thing.

Very cool. The one that I saw was on the hunt.

I was actually a little (certainly not a lot) disappointed that I didn't see more tarantulas and tarantula hawks this year. I also really don't want them to be commonplace and something that I see every day either.

[Racerbvd]

[Seahawk]

Soybeans for all my friends!

Finishing up today, last 1/5 of the farm. My absolute favorite time of year.

Not me,not my combine, not my truck...I have been working with the same guy for 25 years.

[Jolly Amaranto]

Pumping a little water for the cattle tank.

[Skip Newsom]

Molokai stood out as the most interesting island due to it's lightly or undeveloped beaches and roads, particularly going south to the end of the island.
Last 5 miles or so drop to a one lane with lots of blind turns and a section that is right along the ocean- when the trades are blowing and it's high tide like experienced, you keep your windows closed so you don't end up with some of the Pacific in your lap.

East side beaches were small and so-so.
West end were unbelievable, often with only our tracks and no a soul in sight... just like I like it!
Crazy variety of volcano spit in many colors sizes and textures, football size chunks of obsidian embedded into bubbly red lava in one area.

300mm lens view of the Leper colony, close as we got

[Steve Carlton]

Cool pics as usual, Skip!

[Skip Newsom]

[Steve Carlton]

Suggestion- host your images somewhere (I like SmugMug) and post links here around 1,000-1,200 pixels wide on landscape shots. Your images will look better bigger!

[k9handler]

[Skip Newsom]

^That looks good about now!^

Thanks Steve, the images are cut waaay down from as captured.
I use the evil Google drive to share with the fam.

Obviously on the wrong side of the camera

[VINMAN]

This morning..

[Jolly Amaranto]

Looks like meat is back on the menu boys.

[daepp]

Originally Posted by Skip Newsom

^That looks good about now!^

Thanks Steve, the images are cut waaay down from as captured.
I use the evil Google drive to share with the fam.

Obviously on the wrong side of the camera

DUDE - great shots (as always) of "The Friendly Isle"!

I actually have a bit of a connection there. Both my son and I were taught (30 years apart) by the same order of priests as Fr (now Saint) Damien of Molokai. Damien was a Belgian missionary who, knowing that it was most likely to end with death, volunteered to help the lepers on the Kalaupapa Peninsula. It's a terrific story, but in short back in the 1860's he organized the poor lepers and helped them build shelter, secure a steady water supply, and get them the basic necessities that up to then had been denied them by the King and his government. Before he'd arrived they were unceremoniously pushed out of the King's boats with nothing but the clothes on their backs, woth nothing to shelter them from the elements. Damien did well by them, but did in fact contract leprosy and died about 15-16 years later.
In the late 1950's they dedicated my high school to his honor, and when my son graduated 3 decades later we decided to make a sort-of pilgimage to the leper colony. Nothing fancy - very much not a resort trip etc. The highlight was hiking down the pali cliffs from "top-side" Molokai down to Kalaupapa. It was an extraordinary experience to say the least.

I know how much you like to hike - next time you visit, try to get a pass and hike down to the leper colony - you won't be disappointed!

Topside Molokai



The first sign you see when you leave the little airport in your convertible rent-a-car!

[daepp]

The Trailhead



















A look back at the 1800' of pali cliffs we'd just decended.



Best advice we got - get up early, you don't want to follow the mules the whole way down!

[Rick Lee]

Relocated this little guy from a neighbor's backyard to the desert last week.

rattler2021b by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/193166711@N07/]

rattler2021a by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/193166711@N07/]

[daepp]

Kalaupapa and the Leper Colony





Originally the Hansen's diesase patients (lepers) were completely isolated. At some point they were allowed to have visitors, but they were kept separated from actual contact with their family etc in this building.











A typical patient's house





The end of the line on the peninsula - the village of Kalawao.




Once it was discovered that antibiotics could stop the leprosy, the patients were allowed to leave in 1969. Little if any did, as the colony had been their homes for so long, and in a way had become a bit of paradise once the progress of the disease had been stopped.

[daepp]

Sight-seeing flight - the cliffs rise up so fast it's a little daunting...















St Damien of Molokai

[Baz]

My '02 Silverado.....just getting broken in........