Nikki's Photography

Bees, wasps and hornets love the fruit dropping from our neighbor’s trees. With plums, apples and cherries, our yard is a virtual fruit salad!

Sometimes subjects are so intriguing, I feel effectively spellbound. “Cringe” cannot quite describe the lingering feelings of regret and anguish over losing touch with the reality of holding a $1500 dollar camera while taking this photo! My EOS50D smashed to the cement sidewalk while trying photograph this unusual spider-ball. I cringe just thinking about it — the camera incident though, even more than the creepy spider-ball phenomenon. Thankfully everything appears to be in working order, except the lens.

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

Earlier this year, just before the leaves came out on the eighty foot high Sweetgum tree in our yard, my husband cut it down. Any doubts we may have had about removing it as an ornamental disappeared when we saw how easily the branches snapped, and how the tree was starting to rot from the inside out. Setting the logs aside as I helped to lower them, I noticed these shapes produced by the dying core.

Strange insect burl, Cryke Point, Vancouver Island, BC

Garden Spider, Hillsboro, Oregon

________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Black bee pollenating orchids, Ajijic, Mexico

_______________________________________________________________________________

Fire Ants on the Crepe Myrtle tree, Lewisville TX. This photo does not represent life-sized fire ants, thankfully! I’m a bare-footer, so here in Texas I’ve adapted to getting stung at least once a day. These ants are everywhere in the south, year-round, and there is no eradicating them…you can only discourage them from growing colonies in certain areas; they just move from one location to another. It’s said that if you have fire ants in your yard you don’t get termites.Counting blessings then, I’d much rather have the ants.

Every year I have to actively discourage the fire ants from establishing their nest at our back door. The fire ants are always present, but two or three times a year they try to set up their home in ours. Rather than use commercial insecticides, baking soda and boiling hot water work great. If that doesn’t do the trick, bleach diluted in a spray bottle and pure tenacity do the trick. It may take days, going out every hour — each time a layer of ants comes to the surface I bombard them with one of the two solutions. They are not easily discouraged, but finally, living in our house is no longer an option for them…until next time.