Exploring the Yard

So, no one knows what this is?

Look closely, friends. Now do you see it?

It's a big ball of baby spiders! Right outside my front door, no less.

Shortly after I took the picture, they did this:

I didn't touch them I promise. But I guess they sensed my presence. You see, I'm nice to spiders. I had quite a reputation at my last job for rescuing spiders when people found them in the office. People always want to kill them, and I think that's mean. I like to set them free when I find one inside. I mean, they don't want to be inside, either. Plus, I like to keep my spider-karma clean. I figure that if I kill spiders my whole life, the chances are pretty good that one will eventually kill me. Besides, what if, when you kill a spider, they let off some sort of high pitched S.O.S. signal, or secrete some sort of scent that beckons other spiders to come to their rescue? I don't want to get attacked by spiders, so, I set them free.

Anyway, then they scattered. The next day, they were gone. Hopefully not inside my house.

One of the joys/pains in the ass of buying a new house is trying to figure out what all the existing plants and trees are, and determining what's a weed and what's not. Like, for instance, see this?

It looks like a big, ugly weed, doesn't it? Needs to be cut, trimmed, removed, etc. Right?

Wrong. Check it out:

Those, my friends, are berries. And let me tell you, there are tons of them. Seriously, I think that I'm going to have hundreds and hundreds, because that is a huge bush and just one one little branch I counted like 30 berries. I think they're raspberries, but can't be sure. There are all kinds of berries around here: loganberries, marionberries, boysenberries, etc. So, I'll just have to let them get ripe and then figure it out. After that, I'll have to figure out how to use them all up. I see lots of cobblers, tarts, and buckles in this blog's future. That much I do know.