Harvestman

Go large to look him in the eyes... He just has 2 eyes, unlike most spiders (and they are located on top of his body towards the front). For some reason, when you see his eyes, he gets cuter... really. :)

The harvestman are only distantly related to a spider; they are not venomous, do not have fangs and don't bite. Most harvestmen are a dull grey or drab brown, but a few are rusty or black and white. I hadn't ever come across one that had this much color; he was very pretty in the sunlight this afternoon, and fairly cooperative...

It was a beautiful, cool sunny day and we spent it outdoors cleaning the yard - prepping for winter. I made dozens of trips up and down the (long) stairway to the lake, bringing all of the summer stuff up to the garage. On one of my last trips down I saw this guy at the edge of the dock... but I didn't have my camera at the time. Later I spent some time viewing the feeder area hoping for a bird blip; too much time, and nobody showed up. I kept thinking about the harvestman WAY down by the lake... I really didn't want to make another trip down there, and doubted he'd still be around. But I wasn't getting anywhere with the birds. So I grabbed my macro and trudged back down the steps. Believe it or not, he was roughly in the same area I had last seen him. To get him to come out a bit more I took these leaves and swept them behind him. Surprisingly, he crawled onto the leaves and let me move them to a nice sunny spot for a picture... Well, 465 million-trilion pictures but who's counting?

It was so nice to feel better, dare I say normal (no comments from the peanut gallery please) and get a ton accomplished. I'm sore from head to toe tonight... but it's the good kind of sore. :))