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!

The Solar Self

Are we all not like the Sun, thinking we are at the center of everything?

Briefly I went back on Facebook after 19 months, back among 251 wireless friends, and was passionately interested in them and in quizzes, including "What is my soul color?" ("silver") and photos of cats and grandchildren, and not only that, but FIVE-YEARS-AGO-TODAY photos of cats and grandchildren, and furthermore, news and outrages I would rather not know about, that made me heartsick and reminded me I was already so, and furthermore so many people I knew were already so and to the brim, and after two weeks could stomach no more agony and left, but regretfully, because Facebook had made me feel like part of a web, ya know.

I walk between 6 and 7:30 a.m. these summer days so now and then I see something special in the morning light.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider Mom

Remember the huge spider in my shower on June 5? It soon vanished and life went on until today, when while yanking a clean towel from my kitchen towel rack, the stacking kind of rack seen in hotel bathrooms, I was aghast to see tiny black crawling specks all over my clean white towel and the other folded towels. Hundreds of -- what, ants? No, newborn spiders!

Quick inspection revealed their cottony white egg case, ruptured (see top center of the photo, a bit to the right; it looks like piece of popcorn), and when I pulled out more spider-infested towels, Mom Spider emerged, fled beneath the tea towels and tried to hide her enormous self, finally dropping to the floor and fleeing into the bathroom. I took all the towels from the rack and threw them into the washing machine with hot water and soap and returned to look for Mom, curled up at the base of the shower, unmoving. I thought because I'd just thrown her babies into my washer that she had died of grief, or else, like the storied Charlotte the spider, finished with reproduction she had no further business on earth. I scooped her up with a long-handled spoon. She clutched it, and I escorted her out of doors, where she is free to make as many babies as she wants.

But what a great choice she made for laying and nurturing her egg case, in a nice soft stack of clean kitchen towels, just outside the bathroom door! Good job, Ms. Wolf Spider! Meanwhile, as I write this, hundreds drown, and any who didn't will roast in the dryer; I expect PETA at my door any minute.[ P.S., the spiders won this round! I washed all the towels without sorting them and now they're all freakin' pink.]

Indoor Wildlife

They're called Wolf Spiders because they don't spin webs -- they hunt their prey and eat 'em directly, as a wolf does. They live in the house--indoor wildlife--but they're usually much, much smaller. I glanced at the shower curtain and saw this:

And then I peeked around the curtain and it was perfectly composed and ready for its closeup, showing its rich leopard-like fur. Did you know spiders move by pumping their legs full of blood?  Anyway, when I went to bed (skipping my shower) it was still there. The next morning it was gone; even more unnerving, although they are harmless. I wouldn't try to vex one of this size, though, or scoop him up in a tupperware and escort him outside. Repeat: "Spiders are our friends."

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.

Along Came an Argiope

Lives in a web attached to the pump house, and has resided there for 4 days now, plump and happy, in a web measuring 24 inches across. The male makes the zigzag part of the web, the female the rest. Called a Black and Yellow Argiope, Argiope aurantia, it is common and harmless but about 3 inches long and is dressed to the nines.

Drama on the Kitchen Floor

The occasional roach comes out of the drain here, but this morning I watched one of 'em get trapped-and-wrapped by a hungry spider, deep in a corner of the kitchen where I don't clean much. The drama went: Spider saw the roach, dropped down and stung or bit it so that the roach flipped on its back. Spider climbed on up, dropped down again and strung up the roach so it was suspended in the air, and then spun it, roping it tightly round the middle with filament. She lowered her prey to the floor after it was all tied up. The photo shows her putting on the finishing touches. The roach expired shortly afterward, and the spider had breakfast.