Backyard Farmgals

We have a visitor to the garden!  Actually, I suspect from the webs I have found that there is a population of these glorious spiders hanging around the garden.  They are quite elusive, but when you find one as big and beautiful as this, you instantly become friends.  This one is bigger than my thumb, it's about 2-inches in diameter with legs included.  Oy vey!  Yeah, that sucker is big!!! I will admit that I am not a spider lover.  Spiderman and I don't go for coffee.  I get a bit creeped out by the eight legs and the sucking juices out of bugs thing.  I will also admit that I have grown to like this guy - not enough to pick it up and make kissy faces at him, but enough to catch grasshoppers for him and feed it while my kids watch wide eyed! He has a beautiful web that he has rebuilt about four times over the last few weeks.  It looks like the classic spider web with "spokes" radiating outward and concentric circles of progressiv...

As promised, the rest of our fabulous trip to Colorado, in photos.  The second day was spent in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), which is incredible.  The tundra at RMNP was impressive along with the herds of elk and the stout little flowers growing and stretching as far as oxygen would permit.  We learned a bit about identifying flowers and set out to identify a few on our own.  This was great fun with the exception of the altitude factored in.  We were at 11,700 feet and a few of us got sick.  I was just a bit dizzy and breathing a bit faster than usual, Julie was a lot dizzy and decided not to hike around so much as to just sit and take it all in (and go shopping at the visitor's center). Photos cannot do the mountains justice.  The range is massive and one of the most awe inspiring things I have ever seen.  It really makes you wonder where all of this glorious earth came from. Some of the exquisite flowers we sa...