Spiders

I'm all creepy crawly the last few days. I found a beautiful spider in my garden. These are called Writing or Garden Spiders. Garden because that's where they live, Writing because of the pattern on their webs. They have a normal web shape, but with an additional thick scribbley type pattern down the middle of it. You can't really tell in the photo, but if you look below her you can kind see it. I got too close after this and she jumped off. Yes she, in spiders girls are usually large and pretty and boys are little and drab.

We used to have one of these in my classroom. Actually we had a couple. Once they lay eggs they die and we had to get a new one. (I could contain a large spider, but a bunch of small ones might escape, they had to be put back outside.) Certain class days we would head out and hunt bugs. Crickets were an especially easy target. The kids would catch the bugs and we would choose one to feed to the spider. Every time she built a web, we'd throw a bug in it. The kids loved to watch how she'd move to grab the bug and immobilize it, then roll it up in webbing. Well, of course, there were as many ewwws as cools, but they were all watching.

I have decided to name her Zola. I showed her to Brad, but he was not impressed, he was also very concerned that she was poisonous. I assured him she wasn't poisonous, to him anyway. The large dead moth she had at the time didn't help much. However, since she's outside and easily avoidable(he never goes near the landscaping, that's my area) he's decided not to put out a death decree. Lucky Zola. Now as long as the puppy doesn't find her we're in good shape.