The other night I spotted it over by the window while I was fixing supper. A family member immediately went into some kind of loop: How did that get in the house? How did that get in the house? How did that get in the house?

Somehow, the subject was cornered. This morning I released it on a piece of paper, but it was bent on a fast escape. The home jar was too distorted for a decent photo, so I used a plastic cup instead. It spent the entire session trying to leave the premises. Unlike the previous spider, it did not spin obscuring webs. Very soon now, it will be finding a new home out in the garden.

When the boys were young, there was the occasional LAN party, usually on someone’s birthday. Food was not particularly important, and the present-opening tended to be anti-climatic, with everyone anxious to get back to whatever they were doing. The pizza and cake disappeared as the night went on, and the guys didn’t leave till morning, taking all their monitors and games with them.

Compared to the birthday parties of their younger days, it was easy. And thank goodness, no one had to resort to this at our house.

In which the poor beast is compared to Tom Cruise.

As most of my readers know, I have little patience for the suburban pests that seem to multiply in my yard. By now, you also know about the bird feeding table here right in front of the window where I work. On a normal day, the dark-eyed juncos appear around the time I’m having my oatmeal, 7:30ish, then the chickadees show up. Some days they fight with the juncos. Some days the juncos fight with each other. The occasional titmouse comes by with its mate. Ditto the towhee. There’s a wren or two, and over to the left is the hummingbird feeder. When I’m staring at the laptop screen, which is 99% of the time, any odd movement (such as a squirrel jumping on the table) registers immediately.

At lunchtime, there was a really strange shaking of the nandina bush next to the table. When I peered around the screen, there was a little mouse laboriously making its way up the branches. It looked like a small stuffed animal.

The roof rats, for which this area is famous, tend to come out just before dark, which is why I bring in the bird food around 8:00 p.m., even earlier now that the light is changing. From time to time we can see them scurrying along the tops of the fences. Nasty-looking, ratty things. Sometimes they leap up on the table right after sunset, completely creeping me out. But this doesn’t happen very often.

Now this tiny thing was struggling to get up the bush. It looked a little like a field mouse, but cuddlier. Could it have been someone’s pet, used to a human mealtime ? When I got outside, it took a good look at me before scrambling down the branches and away.

I should have gotten a photo.

Gmail can’t access my contacts. iStock has 60 staff members working on their problems, and their site is up and down. And the market is tumbling due to weak housing data. The squirrels sent an email saying they’ve eaten all the baby zucchinis off the plants, what else is on the menu. I expect a message from the ants pointing out the difficulties of ingesting the Terro granules, and could I please put out the liquid form instead.

This time of year it’s hard to check the garden without walking into spider webs. In the 95° temps this afternoon, I found this creature. A hot breeze came up, so I didn’t get the shot I wanted. I suspect it will still be there tomorrow.

A family member saw the feathers coming down from the oak tree. By the time I set up the tripod, the hawk was mostly finished, and sailed off across the rooftops. Although there are bigger birds, it seems to be after the little dark-eyed juncos lately. The junco breeding pairs in the yard are very successful. While not exactly in big flocks like the sparrows, they are still the dominant group. Stands to reason the younger ones are easier to catch.

I had to fight off the ants for the feathers.

Dear Mass of Teeming Insect Life,

My lone brain is obviously inferior to your collective genius. Despite my peppering the ground below with a potent ant poison, you have managed to sidestep this formidable obstacle, and once again reach the holy grail of hummingbird nectar. You have gathered those among you who have mastered the art of swimming, and breached the defenses of the double moats.

The grail of endless sweetness has been temporarily moved to its original position under the roof overhang. Where you will no doubt send your mighty armies in the stealth of night.

Meanwhile, the hummingbird and I are pondering possible solutions. It has nixed the vaseline. But is probably grateful for the protection of the overhang, although I don’t think the average hawk will go for a hummer. See next post.

A few posts back, I was gloating about ant-proofing the hummingbird feeder. Apparently, the ants keep up with the blog.

As I sit here eating toast, deep in work, the hummingbird shows up. Instead of landing, it hovers from one opening to another, then disappears. I peer at the liquid in the feeder about ten feet away. Hmmm, this calls for a closer inspection. I had just changed the nectar on Monday, and it was still clear. Except for a speck or two, which could have been some debris from the tip of the hummer’s beak. But no. Maybe half a dozen ants were hanging in little straight lines, back legs somehow attached to the sides, heads in the nectar. A few more elsewhere, floating.

Unlike before, there was no line of marching ants heading up and down the wire of the tomato cage to which the feeder is hanging. However, there was a parade and field show going on underneath where I’d forgotten to hose down the patio.

Out come the Terro granules. When I first bought this economy-sized bag, the smell was so pervasive that I hesitated using it. But about this time each year, war is declared, and I don’t have any of the little packets of liquid left. The key to the granules is that they have to be wet to be effective. No problem today.

Ideally, the feeder would be suspended over a small pond. Lacking that, this will have to do.

Thursday is garbage day (at least 3 trucks, sometimes more). It is also the day the gardeners come and do their leaf-blowing for two houses across the way, which cranks up the chihuahua in back and sometimes the chihuahua mix next door to it. If I’m really lucky, some neighbor is having a large tree removed and composted (an all-day project). For the past few days at peak rush hour times, the main thoroughfare up the way is the site of a horrendous accident requiring the services of many emergency vehicles. Add to this the use of student djs at the junior high who are allowed to play music of their choice during recess and lunch (sometimes longer), delivered to us via loudspeaker.

While I complain about the heat this summer, on days when I have to turn on the a/c, the white noise cancels out everything else. And guess what. Several days are coming with forecasts up to the 90s and beyond.

It has resided in the pimento jar on my desk for several days. I haven’t been anxious to take a photo, thank to the vivid memory of a family member’s experience as he leaned in to shoot one years ago. His subject made a sudden move, prompting him to drop his camera.

As I was setting up, there was a loud buzzing on the window. A crane fly had somehow gotten in, and for a moment, I contemplated the obvious. But I took the fly outside. Which is where I will put this jar. Right now. (Now if it had been a housefly, that would have been different.)

In early September in the Bay Area? No way. A few drops on the skylights at first. I went back to sleep. But then, a definite shower woke me up again. Did I leave sacks of fertilizer open? No. Did I leave tools out? Yes, all the pruners. Did I get up and bring them in? No.

For over a month now, I’ve been trying to photograph the lone hummingbird that comes to the feeder. He and I are old friends now, and he has been quite patient with my efforts to get closer. Yesterday I did away with the tripod to see if I could do hand-held using my 75-300mm lens. Surprisingly, he was very tolerant as long as I didn’t move laterally.

Today, I assumed he was distracted by the missus, who dove in repeatedly as he tried to eat. But after a bit, I realized it was another male since both looked very much alike.

Now I find that whenever I go out to try for a shot, he darts away. Has this one chased the other away? Just as I got it tame enough to put up with my constant shooting? I won’t know for sure till I actually get a photo.

It used to be home to a number of salamanders living under a large, rotting stump. Not sure if they are still around, but the local raptors like to dine in the branches above. If the collections of feathers aren’t a giveaway, the whitewash on the blades of the clivia certainly are. Not much grows here, mostly because I forget to water. Due to a massive network of fine oak tree roots, if something is put in the ground, it had better be tough and low maintenance. Most everything is in pots.

This is where the monstrous fern bought earlier this summer resides. It is thriving, mostly because it is big enough to have established its own microclime. Smaller ferns are encouraged by this, and are coming around. There used to be hostas, but they gave up years ago. A few pots of bamboo, some steppingstones. And, apparently, a kajillion ants, all lined up on the hose, ready to climb up my arms and legs.

Actually, I was prepared this afternoon. Not only for them but for the strange gnats that fly into the eyes. But I didn’t see the remains of the small bird underfoot until too late.

And so a little later than usual this season, I had the swarming-ants-on-the-person moment. Once safely in the house, I saw a leaf on my shirt that I tried to flick off.

Except it was a reddish spider of a kind I’d not seen before. After I screamed, I managed to get it in a jar. It actually played dead, and was hard to move because it had spun an obstacle around itself. Perhaps I will get a photo later. But then again, maybe not. It is suspended in the jar, looking sinister.

I don’t know about you, but headlines like this make my morning a little more cheery.

I go to give the hummingbird feeder a close-up check for ants, as in ‘Is that an ant in there or a shadow of something’, and the hummingbird decides to fly in at the same time. Jeez.

As if the ants have that much of a chance. The feeder is still hanging from a tomato cage in a pot with a struggling tomato plant. However, I took the trouble to put the pot in the pot bottom that my giant fern arrived in. This is filled with water. There is this moat and the moat built into the feeder itself.