My Critters

I have a few critters here in our flat. Some I do not want to show you - like the spider I tried and tried to kill a couple days ago but it escaped me anyway, through a crack between the window and window frame. Or the ants in the kitchen that come and go now and then. Or the flies. Oh what the heck... I have photos of them all! Why don't I show them to you? :) :) :)

My cat, Cheyenne, sunning herself in the doorway to the balcony, in the morning before it gets too hot. Her fur is a little scruffy in this photo - she's lost a lot of fur this summer due to the heat, I think. Also, she's an Old Lady Cat now, 12.5 years old! Hard to believe, but true.

Supervising my last weaving project, which still is not completely finished, so I haven't posted about it yet, but I will! She has her own little pillow to sit/lay on while she makes sure I'm doing it all correctly.

My goopies! The Russian pronunciation of guppies. :) :) Yes, I finally broke down and bought 3. Two females and one male. Aren't they pretty? (I had to darken the photo, tho, to bring out the colors because through the water they look rather pale and gray. Also, you can't see the male's tale in this photo - it's orange and black and much larger than the female's tails. Just regular, normal guppies like at your local pet store in America.)

And yes, they do reproduce. They also eat their young. :( But this one has survived so far!

They are really hard to photograph, darting here and there, somewhat scared of me still. I think there might be one other one in there right now, but I also am pretty sure that when I went to feed them this morning that I saw one of the females eat one. So...who knows how many babies are really in there? :)

We've only had one dragonfly in the flat this summer, not like the hordes we had a couple of summers ago! Maybe because the balcony door has been closed much of the summer due to the heat and high humidity?

Flies, flies, flies. Everywhere on the underside of the window bars in the bedroom window. So weird. They 'rest' there for long parts of the day. Sometimes they come in through the open window and rest inside. I could only see one today however, but this is what they do:

I like it when they stay outside. It is interesting to see them there sometimes. I've counted up to 13, some in groups of 2 or 3, others in a line, and some just here and there.

Ants! Yes, we have ants, especially in the spring. Oh my! They were all over the flat at one point. I'd be sitting here at the desk and realize an ant was crawling up my arm. Only found them in the bedroom once, but they are in the livingroom (we eat there) and of course, all over the kitchen. I did take a photo of them on the trash can, but you don't want to see that one. :) :) This is the kitchen wall, and I think that is a tiny piece of frozen spinach they found. After I took this photo, the poor little things just slowly slipped back down the wall a couple inches. I felt sorry for them and left. I have no idea if they ever made it UP the wall, where they were trying to go when I so rudely interrupted them.

This photo was from May. They are mostly gone again now. I wonder where they come from? I wonder where they go? I have no idea. I've tried to find where their trail ends, but it seems to be behind the cupboard - maybe through a nail hole into the wall? The walls are made of stone "bricks" that have holes like very hole-y Swiss cheese (less weight in multi-story buildings). I always think of the ants in Proverbs when I see them, and try to remember that I'm supposed to be like them.

And of course, there are the birds that come and sit on the balcony bars and clothesline, or even on the windowsill and peek in at me, too. :) This is one, another one actually poked his little head up over the window sill and looked me over real good before flying away. Others have sat on the bars and watched me. Should I be scared of The Birds? :) :) haha!

Spider alert!!!! If you don't like spiders, don't scroll down!

Ok, I did not get a photo of the spider, did not even think of taking one (but I should so I can identify it!!). But here is it's web - I did take a photo of the web the day before, in the sunlight. Left it so I could hopefully find the spider and kill it. The web is gone now, the spider, unfortunately, is not. :(

Yikes! I finally really looked at this photo and what do I see???? The spider!!! Took 2 photos and it's in both of them, but this is the best picture. Do you know what kind it is? Ei yi yi. Gives me 'the creep out' just looking at it!! I've got to kill it.

Ooops! Almost forgot this guy, a victim of the spider who lives between the windows in the office room (the other one was the livingroom spider - I have got to clean between the windows again!!! but I can't in the livingroom until the a/c unit is put away for the winter.) He appeared overnight in the window.

PS - Am I nuts???
hahahahahahahahaha

Summer of the Dragonfly

Can you see them both?
It's not even 10:45 in the morning and we already have 2 new dragonflies in our livingroom. Poor Cheyenne. My poor plants! When Cheyenne is hunting, nothing gets in her way - plants, photos, people. This last little guy bit the dust yesterday. I just found him on the floor. So, we have 3 in our flat right now, actually there are 3 dead ones in the trash basket beside the desk, so that makes a total of 5 now - 2 alive and 3 dead. Two dead ones were taken out in the trash yesterday. I'm going to have to find a screen for the door to the balcony - yet, both the window in the kitchen and the window in the bedroom are open, too.

I wish it would rain! Then maybe they would stop coming in here.

I'm glad they don't go straight into the pond - then I would have one very wet, very mad cat, shaking water all over the flat, and possibly fish flopping around all over the floor, too, and a broken fountain. Oh my! I am sure they smell the water and are searching for it. But where are they coming from??? The river is far from here. Maybe some of the private houses in the nearby areas also have outdoor ponds and fountains?? They sell them now at Nova Linea and other garden places. I don't know.

I just feel sorry for these little guys - searching and searching for water, then trapped in here. I can't catch them to put them back out like I would a wasp or bee. Maybe I need to see about getting a big net of some kind - but then, I'd just make a bigger mess than Cheyenne does! :-}

Oh, I have to make such difficult decisions!

Oh, my life is just so exciting!

Ha ha!

update
This is #3 today. I heard it making it's buzzing noise but thought it was one of the first 2. I thought maybe it was in the window because Cheyenne raced over there. Nope. I had to search a bit, but then I saw it. I looked over at the wall and the first 2 were still clinging to the wall over there. What to do, what to do! The fan was on, so I turned it off. Came into the office, grabbed my camera again and a pencil. When the fan totally quit spinning, I put the pencil in between the wires and gently moved the dragonfly up far enough that he could escape backwards. He did - and immediately flew back out the door. Whew!

Actually, now that I think about it - maybe these are females looking for a place to lay their eggs. A source of water. I'm going to have to look up dragonflies and find out more about them.