On Saturday I headed for my customary brunch with friends at the Golden Pita. While we were there, the sun started to peek through the clouds, so I decided to head off to do some photography afterwards. My destination was the lower part of Hume Park, which runs along the Brunette River at the north end of New Westminster.

I didn't quite make it to the park; it turns out there was an accident on Columbia Street right where the turnoff for the park is.

The accident involved an SUV slamming into the back of my car as I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could make my turn; the black car is mine.

I was pretty shaky after my unexpected bumper-car ride, and so I sat on someone's lawn on the side of the road while first the paramedics and then police came and talked with me. A passing motorist must've called the ambulance because they were there within five minutes and neither I nor the other driver had called. The paramedic asked me a few questions and thought I was relatively okay, but he offered to take me to the hospital if I felt I should go. Presumably the folks who were in the SUV got the same offer, but noone felt badly enough to leave in the ambulance.

The police got our accounts of the accident, and called for a tow truck to have both cars towed off; the SUV had lost its transmission fluid and my car was possibly operational but a bit mangled and liable to shed pieces if driven. Here the firemen are disconnecting my battery after having spread mulch around to absorb the fluid leaking from the SUV.

I managed to salvage my camera gear and briefcase out of my trunk (which was still operational, albeit stiffly so) before the constable called a cab for me.

I guess I was still quite shaky and the cab ride home was a bit of a blur.

One of the more interesting aspects of taking so many photos is that my camera and I have really gotten to know one another. My camera must've sensed that I was out of it and so it decided to take some photos on the way home; and furthermore it decided to take photos that show the way I was feeling. I swear that I didn't press the shutter button on the next three photos.

This one, as far as I can tell, is a close-up on the back seat of the taxi, probably taken as I was putting my camera and gear in. The blurry feel captures my headspace pretty well.

After that last one, I was up the stairs, into my home, and able to relax a little. I was sore in my lower back and neck; the lower back had been that way since the impact, but the neck was a new development.

I consulted with my friend Matthew, who is wise in the ways of insurance companies and in the care of injuries resulting from accidents. He suggested that I should make sure that I move around a bit, rather than staying in one posture for a long time. So after I called in the insurance claim, I decided that I should take a little walk to keep things from stiffening up.

And if I'm going to take a walk, I'm bringing my camera, dangit. So I put my macro lens and macro lights on the camera, grabbed a plamp, and headed out about half an hour before dusk. (A plamp is a gooseneck device with clamps on both ends, used to clamp plants and other small things into position.) This macro setup, without the tripod, is fairly light, so I didn't think it would cause a strain on my back. And bending around to get photos of little things would probably be good, too: it exercises more mobility than simply walking.

By this point, I was feeling a lot more clear-headed than I had been earlier. My first stop was in the courtyard, by one of our Japanese Maples. They're all different shades of red now, and I wanted to try to capture some of it up close. I got good color on this shot, but unfortunately, my main leaf had a few blemishes that I didn't think about as I was taking the shot.

Next to the maple was a rose bush, with the stems pruned back already. Some of the leaves on this bush had some blemishes, and I did think about these ones. The blemishes included holes, and I thought maybe something had been eating at the leaves. Sometimes when this is the case, you can find whatever was eating them under the leaves, so I checked the undersides of a few leaves. On one of them, there was a small yellowish sphere that was one or two millimeters across. I couldn't make out what it was, but knew that I could probably get enough detail to figure it out if I took a photo.

So I set up my plamp to hold the leaf sideways and took a couple of shots of the little yellow ball. It turns out that the little yellow thing was the abdomen of a small spider. I asked around, and the best guess is that this guy is a Cobweb Weaver, probably in the genus Theridion.

I've seen small spiders before, but never one that colorful. That was pretty neat. And it looks like there's a molted spider skin right above him, and a couple of egg sacs behind him. So maybe there'll be more like that one around soon.

On my way out of the courtyard, I stopped to take a photo of one of our common local Garden Spiders when I saw that the spider had prey. This spider is at least ten times as long as the little yellow one.

I really liked their patterned wings.

At the edge of the same frond as that last Bark Louse, I found a little spider. I've never seen this kind of spider before, and I haven't had time to figure out what kind it is.

Canadian pennies, for those of you with no access to them, are about 19 millimeters in diameter.

The slugs were a great find; I'm always happy to find new critters. I did some digging in my mollusc book and found two candidate species for my slugs: Deroceras laeve (Meadow Slug) and Deroceras panormitanum (Longneck Fieldslug). I'd guess from the size of the big one that they're Longnecks; which are supposed to be 25 to 30 millimeters long. Meadow Slugs are supposed to have an upper limit of around 25 mm. However, that's cutting it pretty close, and the book says that the best way to tell these two apart is to examine some of their internal organs...which I'm not really inclined to do.

That was it for my walk down the quay; I had accomplished my main goal of keeping my back moving, and I'd discovered a lot of interesting new things along the way. Not a bad ending to a day that didn't seem to be going all that well.

Slightly banged up,
Tom