It's the little things...

So, being Saturday late afternoon / early evening, RMan is ensconced in front of the TV watching his rugby, and I am plonked in front of the laptop, chilled glass of white to hand, having my blogging time.

I have wanted to mention this for a few weeks now - I can't switch on the laptop everyday so I try and keep up with everyone's blogs via Blogger Dashboard on my smartphone, but not every blog allows me to comment using it. And I don't always remember when I am properly online to revisit those pages.  But I do read your blog postings - I promise :)

I love those crisp early morning before sunrise.  Picture me - RMan still fast asleep in bed, so I'm toddling down to the gate and back, round all the veggie patches / orchards, humming to the alpacas, and quacking to the two ducks - in my (warm) gown and crocs.  I can't wear my winter sheepskin slippers outside - they'll get too wet from the dew - and wet sheepskin slippers start to smell... :)   Cold damp (wet) feet can easily be warmed when I return inside, and that early morning time outside is too precious to be fussy.  But I am a veritable sight to behold - I don't care, for it's only the animals that can see me LOL

But, to get back to those early morning solitary rambles round the property - there are a wealth of things to see, but you have to look closely...

A traditional suspended spiders web

... spiders webs of all description - traditional...

... and a not so traditional web

... and, what I call the tunnel spider web.  Our "lawn" (wild grass) is literally covered with them in the mornings.  I'm not too sure how this spider catches anything, because even the dew just hangs there on the outer edges, and doesn't drip down into the tunnel, so I'm guessing that a small insect will do the same. But I do wonder what the point is of the tunnel?

The morning-after-night-before for this tardy bee

Our lemon trees loved the belated pruning I gave them a few weeks ago. They have all started sprouting new leaves.  I am keeping a sharp eye out for a sign of the return of the woolly fruit fly, so the lemon orchard is included in my early morning stroll.  Carefully inspecting the trees, I spied a bee on one - at first I thought it had been skewered onto a lemon tree thorn by a butcher bird.  As I looked closely, I saw it feebly moving it's one leg.  I am surmising that it stayed out too late the evening before, and didn't have the energy to find it's way home.  When I to checked this lemon tree after the sun came up, it had disappeared, so it must've got warm enough to make the homeward journey.

Finally, this moth flew in one night, and I found it on the dining table the next morning.  I have never see a moth with this pattern before.  Pretty, isn't it?

It isn't just the obvious beauty of this place that we love - it's the little things that count too :)