Spiders

As I lay in bed early one morning, I watched a small spider descending on a single strand of web material just outside my window. It disappeared below the sill but then reappeared as it made its way up the screen before vanishing again on one side. This went on for several minutes as the tiny yellow creature explored the area probably trying to determine whether or not it would be a good place to weave a web. I didn't watch it long enough to discern what its decision was, but long enough to realize that I had been privy to yet another process that goes on relatively unobserved by most of us during our daily activities.

Now I've never been a great fan of this particular insect. Like many people, I am unnerved by the way a spider propels itself along, and I always gasp when I see one of its kind lurking in a corner or scurrying out from a sink drain. The tiny ones tend not to bother me as much as the larger more conspicuous ones, and I've been known to recoil in horror when my hand has moved too closely to one. Yet, as much as they unnerve me at times, I am fascinated by these creatures that sometimes seem to materialize out of thin air as they hang from threads that are all but invisible.

While all spiders exude silk through a tiny opening in their abdomens, not all of them use this material for web building. Some spiders use it simply to encase the thousands of eggs they lay in a season, while others use it to help them get around via a process called ballooning. The silk liquid that the spider produces hardens the moment it hits the air, and the process involves creating a thin layer of it that is designed to catch the wind and move the spider from place to place. Of those spiders that don't build webs, some actively hunt, while others, classified as jumping spiders, leap great distances to capture their prey or to avoid imminent danger.

There are four basic species of web builders-cobweb spiders, orb weaver spiders, cellar spiders, and funnel web spiders. These spiders have the poorest vision of all and depend for their survival upon the vibrations produced when hapless intruders become entangled in their webs. Orb weavers are responsible for the intricate webs we see outside in dense shrubbery or in open fields. As a child, I remember being startled quite often when suddenly coming upon a web produced by the large and very imposing black and yellow garden spider, an event that always put the kibosh to whatever exploratory journey I might have been on. The body of the female garden spider can measure one inch or more in length, and its web can be as much as two feet wide. It spends most of its time hanging head down in the center of the the flimsy structure, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along. And by the way, the scary creature we call daddy-long-legs isn't a spider at all but a member of a separate insect family that only look like spiders.

It's important to keep in mind that, despite our dislike of these creatures, spiders serve an important purpose in the ecosystem by keeping house fly, mite and other problematic insect populations under control. Of course, as with all other insects, spider populations themselves can reach troublesome proportions, and there are things we can do to minimize our encounters with them that include limiting the places they might like to hide, shaking out our shoes before we put them on, stacking wood away from buildings and being vigilant when opening cardboard boxes that have been in storage for awhile.

There really is no way to predict just where or when we will come upon spiders or any other insect or bug toward which we all display varying degrees of disgust or delight. They are, like all else in nature, part of life, and yet another species with which we must coexist, albeit uncomfortably at times. For the short while I observed this particular tiny arachnid moving back and forth across my window screen that morning, I was again reminded of how many other communities exist within our own larger one and whose inhabitants are bound, as we are, to many of the same laws of nature in order to survive.


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Fall-like Mornings

This place sits roughly 15 feet above the dirt road, so that I essentially look down on any passing traffic, which at this time of year, is still quite substantial. Trees grow along this north-facing slope at different heights, and one oak is close enough so that its branches are now nearly touching the siding. The combination of the height and the tree's proximity give the illusion that I am actually sitting in its branches like a bird from whose perch I am afforded the most marvelous view of life going on below.



I sit often at that particular window, primarily because of those branches. They are visible proof that these woods hold me in their vast arms in that ineffable way that trees have of providing comfort and security. On rainy days, their leaves glisten with moisture, the droplets clinging to their leathery surfaces before slipping off and falling to the earth. And on sunny days, they reflect the light, casting shadows upon the ground, upon this place and upon each other. High winds set the boughs to swaying, and in winter, when only a few dried reddish-brown stragglers remain, snowflakes accumulate in the tiny bends created by leaf stems protruding from branches. The drama of an entire year of seasons can be observed in these few branches, one from which I never tire and that, on some days, is able to restore calm to my innermost workings.



I got a notion a few years ago to grab my loppers and trim that back slope of all of its excess growth. Lots of things grow there, some whose names I know, and others that would require a bit more research to identify. I was ruthless in my cutting, and the result was a neatly trimmed drop-off that opened up a clearer view of this side of the property, restoring its illusion of suspended weightlessness. Such positioning offers privacy of a rare kind, for it is impossible to see much of the inside of this place from the road, a vantage point that affords a view of nothing more than the ceilings if the lamps are all blazing. This advantage makes curtains and window shades unnecessary, as it would be the energetic intruder who would trudge up the hill to get a closer look, especially in the winter when the ice settles in. And at that, anyone under 5 feet tall would need a ladder to look in. As it stands, no one ever pokes around up here other than the occasional neighbor's child selling candy, the folks who read the electric meter, or an invited guest or two.



One's senses become more finely tuned from living in the woods, where even the slightest unfamiliar sound gives pause. In the dead of winter, when traffic is at its lowest point, the sound of any vehicle brings me to the window, if only to see which among my few year-round neighbors has dared to venture out that day. Of course, this dirt road is never a clear indicator of what the main road is like after a storm. What seems to be an impenetrable mass of snow here has usually already been removed by the time I have to go anywhere. Yet the sense of being snow-bound persists until I get to where the dirt ends and the tarmac takes over.



This all seems like a lifetime away at this point, but experience dictates otherwise, for in not that many weeks, the wind will shift once again, bringing colder temperatures with it. The days will shorten, and the sun will smile upon a different part of the earth for awhile, leaving us to close in upon ourselves for yet another year like so many spent flower buds. For now, I sit near my window gazing upon those oak branches, willing them to stay green for as long as possible before nature and the cycle of the seasons deem otherwise.


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