Just outside our kitchen window, in the upper right hand corner, a giant creepy crawly spider has chosen to make its home. It is in a rather good protected area as it is underneath both eave and awning which extends out over our back door deck. Neither rain or wind will be its downfall, and the light, at night, from the kitchen attracts the necessary flying insects, filling her larder with food each evening.
As I ate breakfast the other morning I watched her spin her web. What an interesting creature they are. When I first discovered her she already had about three or four supporting strands that reached across the entire window. How she managed to get from point A to B in order to secure these tiny filaments I do not know. But when I first payed her attention she was busy placing the strands that made up the web; circle after circle. How she managed to tie them, so evenly placed, I have no way of knowing. It boggles my mind just trying to comprehend how anything so small can be so exacting.
By supper hour she had a net that spanned most of the window, and across which she had also woven a silken gauze-like runway down which she easily scampers to devour what is entangled, wherever, in the net. I thought it was interesting enough just to sit and watch this creature devouring insects but she chose to show me another of her hidden wonders. When I searched for her on the next coming morning she was slouched way back in the corner, as though hiding. At first I thought she was devouring an insect, but what she was actually doing was shedding her skin.
Spiders are not insects at all, they are arachnids, and they have eight legs. Unlike most insects the young are born in actual miniature replicas of their parents. I read somewhere, in a younger year, that during their process of growth they shed their skin up to 20 times before they are fully grown.
Most housewives shudder at the thought of a spider taking up residence in a home, But in actual fact a spider is quite beneficial inside your house, as it thrives on gnats, mosquitoes, and fruit flies, which usually abound in the warm summer harvest season.
My Little Lady would not allow them to stay in our residence, nor would she kill them; she simply scooped them up in a bottle and took them outside emphatically telling them to stay. She usually accented her demands by stamping her foot, and the spiders seemed to understand that she wasn’t joking; the next stomp would be directly on them if they failed to cooperate. I think spiders are smarter than we think. None that we recognized ever returned.
Fall time is spider time. I was up at my son’s family farm this past extended weekend. I would rise early to lounge on their cross on the front porch; to sip my first couple of cups of coffee, while watching the bluebirds, with their young, catching creepy crawlies on the short cut front lawn. They came there to feed early before action of the household disturbed them.
The second morning the fog hung heavy throughout the entire valley. When the sun finally shone through there were more than a dozen individual little spider webs randomly slung between the railing uprights clear across the entire length. The reason they all of a sudden became so visible was the fact that they were laden with early morning dewdrops; which sparkled like diamonds, welcoming the morning sun, which rose over the kennels where the huskies are kept.
For a few fleeting moments I was certainly rich, with hundreds of diamonds within easy arms reach. Five minutes later I was bankrupt, evaporation having stole them away. Easy come, easy go, so they say.
This is the weekend folks that I’ll be signing my latest books at the Fergus Fall Fair. Next week I’ll be at Grand Valley. Don’t deprive yourself the opportunity of picking one up. They make great gifts.
Take care, ’cause we care.