Spring...tails

I am tired of talking about the weather. It hasn't done anything that is actually interesting in a while. Like... be sunny for a week. That would be interesting. But I kind of have to talk about it, because it relates to what happens in the backyard. For instance, if it is not terribly cold, like today, and it is terribly wet, like today, the springtails like it very much. Or at least, I assume they like it, because they emerge from wherever it is they are hiding when it is colder, or drier, or both. Today, being warmish (how my standards have fallen...) and wet, there were springtails everywhere.

So many springtails...

 Springtails on the chairs...

 Springtails on the garden fence...

 Springtails on the table thingy on the side of the grill...

 Springtail on my glove...

Springtails attracted by the porch light after dark...

I saw a lot of springtails on trees and rocks, too, I just didn't get pictures of those. If I hadn't seen them, I would have wondered what springtails do when there is no human furniture to hang out on.

Random Bugs:

 Okay, this is not a bug. I think this is cedar apple rust, a fungus. I have never seen one that looks precisely like this, but it seems like one that has not developed its tentacular growths yet (I don't know what those things are called...).

 For today's edition of Wow, I Didn't Expect to See THAT Today, case moth caterpillar. I thought those were all gone by now.

 I looked under a rock and found this lethargic ant.

This one was much more active.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Two really, really tiny ones today: