This has been a banner year for spiders of all shapes and sizes. In late summer and early autumn you can look across our field, as afternoon drifts into evening, and see the smallest spiders drifting on the wind, hanging onto a lacy filament, going wherever they might be blown. In the morning the dew covers each and every spider creation with sparkling diamonds. The grass sways and the webs dance to the music of the changing season.
On my porch I have several varieties of spiders...some big, some small and some in between. I watch them spin their webs from post to post, corner to corner, behind the dinner bell that hangs from the eave. They are welcome as long as they stay outside. Any inside spiders are swept up gently in a Kleenex and deposited out in the grass. There they can find their way to a new home somewhere among their friends and neighbors.
Spider season is drawing to a close. The webs are rather random now. They string in no particular order here and there. I think the spiders are exhausted from their daily work. Many times the wind or the brush of a human hand or arm will break the web they have been weaving for hours. They are not discouraged. After a hasty retreat they make sure the way is clear and start making repairs to the web. Persistent. That's what they are.
I took a census of my spiders the other day. The two who worked on the south side of the porch have disappeared. Their neglected webs drift in the breeze. They remind me of an abandoned house with broken windows and a door that sags on its hinges, creaking in the autumn wind. One of the spiders is motionless on the ceiling of the east facing porch. Dead? Alive? Or just somewhere in between?
Tomorrow I will sweep the porch and get rid of the empty webs. I have enjoyed watching these marvels of nature and their handiwork. But as it is with most things in life, there is a season for everything. And web season appears to be over, here on the hill in Luna.
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