Spiders, Snakes and Shadow Waving…

Part of a cottage experience for us his identifying the various things – plants, bugs, birds and animals – that we see…there are a number of field guides at the cottage and LT’s beau brought some neat survival books that had insect, snake and plant info…

For all who know me, photographing this spider (which we did identify but I can’t remember its name in the aftermath of my fear!) was a major case of forcing myself to do something that scares me! I hate to admit that it was kind of fascinating though…LT and I watched it spinning a fresh web one morning…it took down and made a new web every day…and its web had a very distinct zigzag pattern in a couple places coming out from the centre…it appeared to be after the yellow jacket wasps that come in late summer and we even tried to kill and toss some into its web, but none stuck and I got too creeped out by it all…


















Now snakes, on the other hand, don’t scare me at all…I do have a healthy respect for the Massassauga Rattlers that live on the island, but snakes don’t scare me like spiders do…so when LT and I were loading up the canoe after one of our painting sessions, I didn’t freak when I saw the snake lying under the canoe…right about where LT was going to step when she reached over to put the painting gear in…but she is afraid of snakes…so I said, very calmly, for her to step back from the canoe…now…and she did…so all was good!













The snake was a fox snake (even though the book says they only go up to Point au Baril and we are north of that)…on first glance, their colourings are similar to the massassagua, but fox snakes are longer and thinner…they ‘rattle’ their tail like a rattler though…I was going to pick it up for LT and my dog to have a better look at it, but it was vibrating its tail like mad and I had a momentary thought that went something like this - if I was wrong and it was a young rattler and I got bit out on this flat piece of rock and had to paddle back to the cottage before heading in to Britt (which would take about half an hour in the small motor boat) which is the closest place for the anti-venom shot…so I didn’t pick it up…

I take lots of pictures at the cottage…of the amazing landscape that I love so much…rocks and trees and water…I also take pictures of the tribe - people and dogs (cats when they come too)…a few years ago it was just my younger daughter and Cariño who made it to the cottage and I took this ‘waving’ shot…the lighting and location had to all work for this…it was taken out at the group of islands we call the ‘inner outers’…it is a great place to go for a shore lunch and if the weather is right, to play in the waves on the outer shore…as we were walking around I noticed our shadows following us…


















A couple years ago when I was up with my 2 daughters, 2 of their friends, LT and her Beau, the 4 kids and I had walked over to the other side or our island to see the sun set and I took this picture for my waving series…













Then this year, we all went out to another one of the ‘inner outers’ for a picnic and I took this shot of the group of us waving…I love how the shadows are distorted…















I also took one of just Cariño and me…


















I have years of dog pictures…some of my favourite pictures of our dogs have been ones taken at the island…here are a few of them…