Speaking to Spiders

Spiders were once sea creatures, climbing onto land about 100 million years ago and teaching themselves how to hunt very efficiently by spinning webs and then sitting and waiting, and they've since mastered the art. These elegant creatures have three separate spinneret nozzles in their abdomens: one for spinning non-sticky "framing" thread for their webs; one for sticky thread that catches their prey; and one that's a safety or parachuting line.

These threads -- for their size, strong as steel -- are made of protein and water. A spider needs both protein and water to keep spinning, and when necessary will eat its own web to build up energy for a new one. The orange-red artist in my photo lives on the corner of my garage where my car's headlights every evening give a minute of light while I get out of the car and raise the garage door. The first night I saw the illuminated web, the spider fled to a dark corner. I said "Don't worry. I won't hurt you." It took me at my word and now we are partners. I provide light by night that attracts moths and things into the spider's web.

The daddy long legs spider -- always close to the house because it likes water -- a year ago fell in love with a scrub brush that I left outside, and they had something in common, but this year it has the hots for half a geode, unfortunately destined to be unrequited love, but I said nothing, figuring it should be allowed to enjoy its fantasy world. I wished it much happiness, and went indoors back into my web and my fantasy world.

Animals Know What's Best

All animals know and go for the best part of anything: Here's a daddy long legs enthroned and lounging in the most elegant and fragrant of palaces, the crown of my basil plant, not caring if the plant is not native and scrawny because, I think, I transplanted the young plant into too big a pot, hoping for a big lush green bushy grant of basil. But I love it anyway and am glad a creature has found and appreciates it and feels safe there; there are not enough leaves on the plant for the spider to worry about the risk of becoming pesto.

A young cedar plant, being invasive, picks the choicest spot for its growth an inch in front of a healthy deciduous tree, such as an oak, with the goal of overshadowing it and appropriating all its nutrients, not caring that it's being rude and the other tree was there first; it's just nature.

I was taught to expect or take second-best and leave the absolute best for somebody else -- let them have the best bedroom, best part of the chicken, or shower first and get the hot water, etc. So glad I live where wild animals are teaching me the proper attitude, and there's no pressure to compromise.

Happy Labor Day!

A Companionable Spider

All summer I welcome daddy-long-legs into the bathroom; they arrive even without a welcome, so why not. This orange-brown one, my companion for several days now, first hung out in the plastic container I keep combs and hair products in; then it spent an evening on the sink’s edge, and leg by leg it poled away when I came in to brush my teeth. Here it’s enjoying a bath towel. It seems to like exploring the variety of bathroom surfaces and landscapes—like a European tour, except for spiders. I carefully dried my hands on this towel’s edge so it could keep its footing. It’s so companionable now that it doesn’t flee. What does it think of the giant being who enters and brightens the bathroom (a room with no windows) at intervals, steams it to a comfortable humidity, and leaves it in peace?

I hear many folks bemoaning the end of summer, but summer lasts until my summer companions are gone.

Spider Caucus

It's election day not only here in the human world but among the daddy-long-legs. They are caucusing to nominate candidates for president of my bathroom. The office includes nice perks: water (in these times of severe drought) and a human occupant who doesn't squash them or allow any juveniles to pull off their legs. It's a two-party system divided along color lines; you can see two centrists working hard to create common ground. They are all happy to quit making those dreadful political commercials accusing each other of lying and support for gay marriage and whatnot. The truth is that after the vote and a few martinis these are the gayest spiders I have ever seen.

Daddy-long-legs often gather in groups, what the biologists call "aggregation behavior," and nobody but me knows why. Somebody needs your vote today, so please vote.

Daddy's in Love

Looked to me like this daddy-long-legs is having a loving moment with the scrub brush that has all those marvelous bright green legs. These two seem very very cozy, if you know what I mean...But I'm not one to gossip, so you didn't hear it from ME... The scrub brush later told the potato scrubber that they were just friends...but you know how scrub brushes are; when was the last time one of them told you the truth? Bless their hearts.

Daddy or Not?

Y'see, kids, there are two kinds of Daddy Long Legs. The real Daddy Long Legs usually marries a plant, or maybe it just rents the plant for the summer and makes a web and sits in it just waiting to eat aphids and cutworms and whatnot that'd attack the plant, so they work together. Now this particular Daddy in the photo fell in love with the screen on my porch, and hung there sunning, looking just like a scarab except with beautiful legs, one (at the 7 o'clock position) way longer than the others. Its clinging so close to home, and its one-piece (fused) body makes me think it's the kind of Daddy Long Legs that although it's an arachnid, is not a true spider or Daddy Long Legs at all, but one of those "harvesters" you usually see indoors, like, in your bathroom, and who is your best friend if you don't like bugs or house spiders. I think it's a harvester because harvesters don't spin webs; this one is using a web that was pre-made. Unlike true spiders, the harvester has only two eyes and the males have a male reproductive organ (so they say). Or this could be a brown recluse spider. It's the right color, but they don't care for sun...You got that all down?