Spider Carnage

This weekend I had to mainly 1) prepare firewood for winter and 2) finish my first commissioned knife.

The customer had a look at the knife and I had to adjust the handle a bit so it fits in their hand. No biggie, but it was three hours of additional work all the same since I had to re-shape, re-polish and re-buff the endcap as well. When making knives that are not customer-specific I have to try and make the grips more universal sized and shaped. Or perhaps in different sizes?

Now the knife handle is being coated with boat lack, which is not a process that lends itself to being photographed. As far as the knife goes, you won’t see any new pictures until its finished. But next weekend, while the lacquer is drying and hardening, I am going to make the leather sheath and hopefully make som worthwhile pictures of that. I have not done too much of leatherwork yet, it will be fun.

In the meantime, I only can post a picture I made at work with my phone a few days ago. A gruesome image of one spider devouring another one. See below the fold. I have no idea what species or even genera they might be, but what I do find interesting that it is the slender-legged and fragile looking spider who is doing the devouring and the buff-looking hairy beast is the devoured.

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Tummy Thursday: Me gusta la cocina mexicana

Earlier this week I told you about our trip to the Sagrada Familia and that we wanted to see it at night time. This meant that after we left the cathedral we went for dinner. Of course a tourist city like Barcelona has restaurants galore, many of them trying to push the menu into your hand while you’re walking past them and for me that’s the most failproof way to make me avoid a place. Yet still you find lots of small places that offer good food, especially if you love international cooking. For this meal we found a nice Mexican place where we ate while it got dark.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Starters: Frijoles refritos (mushed baked beans) and nachos with cheese.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

My main course: marinated grilled beef, cactus, pumpkin flower and sweetcorn, guacamole and stuffed habanero, served with tortillas.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Dessert: Guayaba marguerita. I love guavas and they’re so rare here that I consume them whenever I can find them or their derivates. It was delicious.

 

Holidays: Sagrada Familia 1

This year we decided to finally visit the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s masterpiece, which just now got a construction permit. I went there 20 years ago, when you just showed up, threw a few bucks at them and then explored at your leisure. Now you have to book in advance, have a 15 Min window to enter and then have to go through security like at an airport. We bought “evening tickets” which are cheaper and give you an hour to explore the cathedral, which we deemed to be enough with the kids and also we wanted to see it again later in the dark. The entrance prices showed why the whole thing is absurd, since the kid who had to pay reduced admission was complaining and staring at her phone the whole time, while the kid who got in for free called it “the best thing she’d ever seen”.

Let’s start with the outside.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

You enter the cathedral through the “Birth Portal”. Why it’s called that we’ll see in a minute.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

You can clearly see the older and newer parts here.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And here we have him, baby Jesus, apparently needing a bath in a tub.

Holidays: Partial Lunar Eclipse 3

In the last pictures you could see the first clouds sliding in. They got thicker and thicker while I had another whisky, which didn’t make things easier. At least I could still see the clouds in the pics afterwards, so I didn’t imagine them…

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Fungi Friday

This photo brings us to the end of the high-resolution fungal portraits sent in by Opus. All of the photos in this series have been quite interesting and it’s been fun to see the different types of fungus in such clear detail and vivid colour. Thanks, Opus.

British Soldiers ©Opus, all rights reserved

Residence Sunflowers – Part 9 – The Heavy Drinkers

Sometimes a bumblebee lands, drinks a bit, and then flies off again like a little helicopter. Not these two though. They both took their time, going around the flower systematically in a circle, drinking as much as they can. And just when I was taking the pictures, one of them decided to take off.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Residence Sunflowers – Part 7 – Great Green Bush Cricket

I nearly missed her, despite her substantial size, so well does her color blend in with the sunflower stalks and leaves.

I remember that as a child I caught one of these in bare hand and it bit me rather painfully.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Holidays: Partial Lunar Eclipse, 2

After sitting at the beach for a while, we noticed the eclipse, which we hadn’t even known was going to happen.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved I think this one is my favourite

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved Here you can see the first clouds crossing over the moon. More of them tomorrow.

Holidays: The Moon, Part 1

I didn’t know there was going to be a lunar eclipse, but one night I decided to take the camera to the small beach next to the campsite. That “beach” was our evening retreat. It’s actually only a cut in the line of boulders put up to secure the higher coastline where the railway tracks are, but it was a nice place to sit and have a drink. Taking pictures that night wasn’t that easy since I didn’t take the tripod with me and I got increasingly drunk.

The first pictures are taken before the eclipse, with the rising moon and the sea.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved This was an old bunker, though I have no idea what the soldiers were  supposed to do in that, other then look out at the sea and get wet feet. So probably exactly that.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I wanted to catch the moonlight on the sea, but I would have needed a tripod and a half-coloured filter to darken the upper half of the image.

Jack’s Walk

The weather today has been my idea of perfect. Sunny and warm with low humidity and a gentle breeze that slowly pushed creamy clouds across an azure sky. If I could custom order the weather it would be exactly like today. It was so perfect that I made the time to take Jack for a walk in the woods and I know he appreciated it because his tail wagged the whole way around.

While we were there I stopped to talk to a very friendly spider who allowed me to take a photo which I’ve put below the fold for anyone interested.

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