Spider picks barn

Charlotte Web, the spider outside our door, has a friend or relative spinning a web every evening at the barn. And here's the picture.

I think they are both right-handed, because they build in the right corner of the openings, looking at the spider from their backbone.

These two spiders are just the tip of the iceburg of the spider population at our Monterey home. Walk anywhere after dark and you're sure to hit some web. I can guarentee it under the grape arbor or around the dogwood tree.

I have no idea how web strands appear out of nowhere, in the middle of the lawn, far from any vertical. I guess it's a bungee cord instinct in all creatures: let's drop this rope down, hang onto it and see where it goes, especially in this nice breeze.

Profounder than the fear of walking into a web in the dark, is the angst that spiders could possibly take over the world in a few short summers. Haven't I read that New York City, totally evacuated by humans, would revert to wilderness in a few years. I can picture the evolution of spiders in Manhattan: twenty-five pounders pulling skyscrapers into each other, helpless ensnared rats screeching like baby mice for help.

What's bringing the Halloween out of me already?