Youth is like spring,
an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.
Autumn is the mellower season,
and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
~Samuel Butler~
This is a local buck. He came quite close to us in September to get to "know"
our nearly tame doe.
September is the rutting season for these coastal white-tails.
He looks like a plastic statue, but that really is a live buck standing in our garden!
This is a local Tarantula. Whenever we see them we know that the winter rains are about
to begin within the next six weeks.
When these guys roam in Autumn it is the males roaming in search of mates. They will find
a mate, pro-create,
and the females might seize the male and eat him in order to have enough food reserves to
enable her eggs to become large and healthy.
Every Fall we find a few of these guys walking across our front yard on their romantic
quest for a nice girl spider.
We like to let them walk onto our hands. But one time, an injured spider, who the cats had
been teasing, bit into my finger out of exasperation.
I watched as his long curved fangs stroked along my finger, then raised up and came down
with a short, sharp, energetic stabbing motion.
As he started driving them into my finger I shook him off with a rapid hand flick.
I got only tiny pin pricks into my skin, and he was allowed to walk quickly away with me
keeping the cats away from him.
