Painted Rocks Borderline

While strolling one morning, I spotted a line of painted rocks along a homeowner's sidewalk. (Charming!) I decided to record them, starting from the left-side marker limestone boulder and ending with the right-side boulder. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Silk, Silkworms, and Related

Last month, I wrote about spider silk, inspired to research because of recent articles I wrote about argiope spiders. I decided to revisit one of my curiosities about silk, particularly silkworms. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Close Word Groupings for Pause

This article lists mostly pairs of words that can cause misunderstanding because of picking the incorrect word. Context helps with the correct word selection. The trade-off is a time slowdown to assess the situation. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Spider Silk Miscellany

During my searches about argiope trifasciata (banded garden) spiders for "Argiope Trifasciata Spider--Final Bug Spotting of 2017" and "Argiope Trifasciata Spider--Doggone Buggone at 2018 Start", I collected information about spider silk, webs, stabilimenta, and Charlotte's web. IMHO, the most interesting information about spider silk is specialization. Spiders produce different silk for different purposes, coming from different "extruders" called spinnerets. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Argiope Trifasciata Spider—Doggone Buggone at 2018 Start

Tch! On the last day of 2017, I took pix and video of the argiope trifasciata spider. (For background, read "Argiope Trifasciata Spider--Final Bug Spotting of 2017".) The next morning, I went to the web; she was nowhere to be found. Over the next few days, we’d peered into the plant—no sign of the spider, nor indicators of web disturbances, nor egg sac. I’m guessing that the spider did not undergo a "normal" life cycle. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Argiope Trifasciata Spider--Final Bug Spotting of 2017

The spider that I spotted in the morning of December 31, 2017 is in the same spider family and genus as argiope aurantia spider, which I wrote about in "Argiope Aurantia Spider--Part 1, Friday 13th Visitor" and "Argiope Aurantia Spider--Part 2, Post-Friday 13th Observations". The pixstrip images show the palm plant that this article’s spider was in, a peer into the plant, and larger views of the spider and inside of the plant. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Yucca End-of-2017 Miscellany

This article caps off this year of my yucca writings as follows:

1. Yucca's Two Same-Year Stalk Bloom Cycles (contrasting a soft-leaf yucca's two stalks that bloomed within months of each other—one in July, and one in the fall)
2. Yuccas as Succulents
3. Relationship Among Yuccas, Agaves, and Asparagus

Read the entire article and comment there, please.