summer_jackel

Ok, so maybe hard work does have its benefits. Today, I tackled a mess that I've been avoiding all winter, moving a pile of muddy, rotten wood and debris left over from last fall's retaining wall repair to someplace it can decompose peacefully. You can guess how much I've been looking forward to doing that, but it was really getting nasty. At the very bottom of the pile, between a plastic board and the cement, I found this exquisite little beast.

I think that this is a black salamander, Aneides flavipunctatus. It looks like they are evenly distributed across Northern CA but are scarce where I live. Although (as you may surmise) I turn over a fair number of rocks in search of things like this on a regular basis, I have never seen one. It's a "lifer."

After the first few seconds of incoherent glee, I set her up to take photos, moistened her skin with purified water and let her go in a safe spot very close to where I'd found her. She wriggled into the loose earth and rock quickly and with purpose, more like a lizard might than any of the other three species of skin-breathing salamanders I've met around here. (Ensatina, CA Slender and Pacific Giant). The grip of her little salamander fingers on my skin was distinct and firm, where the other three make no effort to hang on.

I cannot express the awe or joy I feel about meeting a neighbor so hidden and lovely.

Here are another couple of views:

Part of the woodpile cleanup involved splitting some half decomposed pine left over from some lousy firewood. The wood had lots of these huge fat grubs three years ago when I got it and the last of it still had some. Hey, Kyn, your Bugguide-fu is better than mine; care to take a stab at ID? Anyone? If I had to guess, I'd say Pine Sawyer larva because I think that those are the biggest beetle-kinda things we have going around here. I am very interested in what these might be. Other than shockingly vibrant in their 'ewwwwwww-bug'-ness; I am impressed.

And here's a closeup of it's cute lil face. AAAAUUUGH

One of the local Stellar's Jays has learned to associate me with bits of suet in the bird dish, and he was pretty excited about these grubs, bobbing around and trying to get me to leave. I gave him some more food but took the awful grubs temporarily into captivity. This is such a cool bird.

Kyn and I hiked on the ridge a few days ago, where of course we also carefully turned over interesting pieces of bark. In exactly the same place as we found a wood scorpion, Uroctonus mordax, last year, we found another one!

What a pretty little thing.

OK, that concludes all of the non-furry subjects of this post. Now you get rewarded with cute fuzzy dogs. I think it's hilarious that the photo makes it look like Bliss has all the coat in the universe. Meanwhile, Rooster is happy because he just indulged in one of his favorite things, muddy water.

The calendar shot.

Totally dorky pictures of the dogs playing. The effect of three young wolfdogs doing this was intense and quite beautiful, some of my most treasured memories; immature collies doing the same thing are a lot funnier.

Et tu, Brut?

We take Bliss so seriously!

When they are not making ridiculous faces, though, the boys are growing up to be handsome.

Some super neat fungus on rotten wood (it's all about the rotten wood today).

The fern tree doesn't photograph well, but

Back at home, a sleepy Jez and Magic:

Jezzie has the most amazing fur. It's uniquely shiny, a little like the glitter on a Bengal cat or the sheen of a satin rabbit. None of the other dogs in her line that I met or any of Fen's other puppies had quite this kind of texture and luster, and neither have any other wolfdogs or huskies I've met anywhere else. Fen had the typical coat type, and Pryde's was like a long-coated malamute.