Venturing out into the garden

I had noticed the blooms of the jambu air (pink guava) tree outside my window yesterday. Time passed so fast (and I was too lazy to do anything) and so I ventured out today. Took two shots of the blooms. Here's one of them.

I knew there were those big red ants (referred locally as kerengga) about, and luckily for me, they weren't on the ground, near my feet. I approached the trunk of the tree...and there...

... all ready to attack me should I get close enough. That's when I realized that the leaves and branches were hanging low, and I felt a leaf on my head. I ducked and backed away. Looking up, I saw ...

... a caterpillar covered in kerengga ants. I wasn't sure whether they were attacking it for food, or protecting it from predators. The caterpillar might just be one of those that produce a sweet liquid that the ants crave. Like a nectar dispenser, perhaps.

I saw some growth at the bottom of the chopped up main trunk. And I took a shot. The three little leaves kinda remind me of the three fingers of the aliens in War Of The Worlds. What do you think?

Yeah, I have an overactive imagination. =) Took a few more shots of the same thing, just different angles, then I moved on to the Feng Shui plant.

As I looked at the other blooms, I noticed a familiar fluff I'd seen some weeks before. And true enough, I saw them on the edge of threads, jumping off like a group of bungee jumpers on a record-breaking bid.

You can see those little wrigglers on the petals of the flowers. I looked at the nearby leaves and stems and they were there too. Wriggling away happily.

Well, it was getting hot over there, so I returned to the back of the house. I looked up and saw this ...

One of the things that gets to me is this, almost every time I try to get a nice, clear shot of something, the wind will start to pick up. I'd strangle the wind if I could. I don't have a lot of patience, and with the wind, there's no telling when it'll die down. For instance, when I tried taking a photo of the little flowers on the Starfruit/carambola tree. Wind started to blow. It was taunting me.

I took three shots and looked for more flower clusters. And that's when I saw a solitary flower. I knelt down close to the ground, my camera pointed up. I was trying to get more sky than the neighbour's banana leaves.

I had trouble taking this photo because the flower kept getting blurred. I don't have steady hands, and the wind wasn't helping much.

Well, I guess that's it from me. It was a real snapping fest this evening. Good thing I decided to add another three-gang plug into my room. Now, I can keep my photoframe dock plugged in and just attach my camera when I'm ready to transfer my photos. I can only save 10 five-megapixel shots using the 16MB internal memory. It sucks not having an xD Picture card.

Went insane earlier and visited There.com. Something about a virtual world where you can meet and make friends. I was curious, so sue me. I downloaded and installed the 54MB application and then it changed my screen resolution! Got all ugly (like in Safe Mode). But the virtual world was alright. Saw a few other avatars and chatted with one. Just before I made the fatal mistake of resizing the window, we exchanged YM IDs. I crashed after that.

I VOW NEVER TO USE There.com AGAIN! Good thing joining and registering were free (no credit card details were requested). Anyways, that's it for me.

Take care all!