saturdays in the fall...

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As my lovely wife hinted at in her earlier post, I wanted to take a few minutes to post an update on my beloved and newly respected Irish. Last week the boys surprised me with a shut-out of a Nevada team that had a few weapons of their own on offense. Notre Dame's defense perfected the bend but don't break approach despite seemingly blitzing someone on every down. On offense, I thought that we looked as good as advertised and seemed to have not missed a beat from the performance against Hawaii in the bowl game last year. Unfortunately, I still wasn't blown away with our ability to run the ball at will or to stifle our opponents rushing attack. Nevada has three 1,000 yard + rushers on their team but, I guess I am nitpicking quite a bit to hope that we would keep them from gaining any yards. I guess that's part of being a fan for some of us. I definitely have a huge chip on my shoulder when it comes to outsiders criticizing my team (that often includes family, Dad) but, I deep down really do expect perfection...on every single snap. Of course, as a true Notre Dame fan, I also expect my boys to win every single game. Yes, that's right, every single game. Even though a part of me is realistic enough to know that many times, this is unlikely, there is another part of me that thinks, no matter what, no matter who, no matter where, the Irish can and should beat these guys! Lou Holtz isn't the only one to suffer from these delusions. So, our opening game left me feeling like the team looks to be about where they should be but, this week is Michigan in the Outhouse (Bighouse). In the interest of not offending anyone, I won't go into much of what I think about Michigan's program. I also hate to blast them, and then set my team up for failure. You see, I'm also ridiculously superstitious when it comes to my Irish. I'll say this, anything can happen when these two teams get together and the underdog wins more often than not, of late. I'm not at all sure what we'll see today from either team. Michigan definitely looked better than last year, seems to have a lot of speed and should be able to run the ball on our defense, unless they totally surprise me (I hope!). I think we'll be pretty good at defending the pass with their freshmen quarterbacks and our experienced secondary. I think it will likely come down to whether or not our offense has improved as much as I hope they have. If our line gives Clausen time to get the ball out to his receivers and we are able to run the ball effectively to keep Michigan from sitting back in pass coverage, we should be alright. In fact, if all these things happen, I don't think Michigan can stay in the game with us. But, I'm just not real sure how much of this will fall into place for us against Michigan on the road. Honestly, it is now or never for this team, in my opinion. I will leave you with a Michigan story. It was earlier September. The year was, 1994. Notre Dame spent the offseason before recovering from being robbed of the National Championship after beating the number 1 ranked Florida State Criminoles head to head. I was a freshman and already swept up in the craze of Irish football. I was fortunate enough to attend my first ever home football game in Notre Dame stadium against Michigan. Both teams were highly ranked and the game had National implications. We were coming of a road win against Northwestern and the game went back and forth. Notre Dame trailed late in the fourth quarter when Ron Powlus threw a pass into the endzone, right in front of the student section and Derrick Mayes made an unbelievable one-handed catch. We went ballistic! I thought, this is what Notre Dame football is!!!! With only seconds left on the clock, Michigan took the kickoff, a few quick completed passes against our prevent defense and marched their kicker out to kick a game-winning last second field goal. I thought, this is what Notre Dame football is???? The love began for me that day and so did the pain. Neither has been far from the other for these past 15 years. So, I pray that when the scoreboard reads zero later today, it will also read: Notre Dame 100, Michigan 0. But, I'll take 30-14 and a continued break from the pain. If any of you would like to check out a really great blog all about Notre Dame football created and maintained by a team of talented writers who know what they are talking about and also often have lots of great pictures and videos, check out The Blue-Gray Sky.

Green Lynx Spider

A few weeks ago, while doing some weeding and trimming to our tomato plants, my hand almost landed on this...

Which totally freaked me out! I usually don't get freaked out by spiders but, this spider, with it's weird lime green body and weird translucent type legs, made my skin crawl. Honestly, it was pretty intimidating looking.

Of course I got out my camera (which, after finding so many neat-o things like the Eastern Tailed Blue and the Tomato Hornworm, is always with me when I go out to the garden) and took a few pictures of it. I decided to leave it alone because spiders are beneficial for gardens but, I didn't continue weeding or trimming near it or the tomato plants, I decided to move on and give it a little space...and me a little peace of mind.

So, I moved on to our Okra plants, which have been doing fantastic for a few months now. I usually pick ten to a dozen Okra each morning. We let them pile up and when we have enough we have fried okra.

Yes, I really did take pictures of our fried Okra!

So anyway, I started moving toward the Okra plant and almost immediately noticed this....

Another one of these spiders hanging from an Okra bloom...

But, this one was having one of these for lunch... A beneficial bee!!

Here's a closer look...

Wow, right?

Bee's, like spiders, are beneficial insects so, I was sad to see this. I'd rather the spiders eat the non-beneficial insects, which there are plenty of, and NOT the beneficial ones!

I googled "lime green spider" and had no problem finding information on these freaks. They are called, Green Lynx Spiders and supposedly, they can run very fast and they jump on their pray like a cat. Yikes! I can't imagine what my reaction would have been if one of these spiders would have jumped on me but, I'm sure it would have been bad for me and comical for anyone who might have been watching.

The site I found on the Green Lynx Spider (which you can also view by clicking on Green Lynx Spider which is in black text in the paragraph above) said that they are, "Known to be important predators of field crop-damaging insects. However, their usefulness in the control of insect pests is counteracted by their willingness also to prey upon beneficial insects." So, I'm thinking these Bee killers have to GO! But, since my encounter with the Tomato Hornworm, it's now Jack's duty to kill whatever weird non-beneficial things that pop up. I guess Jack's squeamish too because these spiders are still residing in our Okra plants. Oh well, I was getting sick of fried Okra anyway.