front door web

I'm on the front porch. The sun is setting. The neighbor is working in the sweet potato patch. If I could turn webs into gold I wouldn't have to work.

Is it work to make the web?

toad in grass

If all life is a web, then I guess someday when I sit down my knees will splay way out and if someone kisses me they will get warts. The two-eyes-forward thing already applies. From boyhood I seem to remember that toads pee on your hand if you catch them. I left this guy hide, camouflaged in the grass near our door.

Way beyond Charlotte

We're way beyond Charlotte Web, the early spider who evoked literary vibes with me. We're now down to hard core agression and capture with this specimen hiding behind the barn.

This does not make me think of sweet stories for children about little piggies on idyllic farms in New England being rescured by clever arachnoid brains.

I don't see a brain here. I see a pin point dedicated circuit hard wired for conquest. I see empire. I see Hollywood terror. I see fools in an oil rich desert, not knowing the climate will change in a few weeks and all that armor will fall and be kicked aside by the natives.

Well, I also see yellow design on an abdomen. Is there a similar creature within webbing distance whose heart will melt upon seeing this fine belly?

Hey, I was just trimming back a few grape vines. What made me think war? Is it time I move to Canada and see this as art?

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?

Charlotte outside the door

If you leave our house at nightfall, walk straight ahead, don't turn to the left.

Charlotte has been spinning her web each evening. I could get the broom from the kitchen and wipe her out.

This morning a slightly smaller spider had entered my car by the window I had left open. In the close space, my pacifistic feelings were overcome by my survival instincts--it's either you or me.

Off came both my shoes and the splot of protoplasm disappeared in mid-air. I feel no guilt.