08/17/2010

Every night for the past week or so, a big spider has descended from somewhere above our front porch to spin a web right near the porch light. We’ve named her Miss Prudy, and it’s fascinating to watch her at work.

During the day the web gets destroyed, because it’s right where the front screen door swings open. Or the wind or rain take it down. Regardless, every night a little after dusk she creeps out of her lair and spins it again. The work goes surprisingly fast– the web is complete and ready, and then she sits right in the middle waiting for someone to fly into it. The location is brilliant: since it’s near the porch light, and we always get moths and little bugs buzzing around the light, it seems inevitable that some of them get trapped on the web.

Although Laralee and the kids all agree they wouldn’t want Miss Prudy crawling on them (she’s a pretty big spider, and fairly nasty-looking), we get a kick out of watching her work and wait for dinner…