It was 34° F. here this morning. Today is the actual day that the first frost is predicted to happen by the USDA, for our area. I'm not sure if the two have ever coincided before. With any luck this cold snap will thin out the arachnid population on our front porch so we can dress it up for Halloween.
The other day, I was standing near our front door when I heard the mail carrier come up the steps and pause for a long time. So I opened the door to see if there was a problem and found him staring at the wall below the mailbox. There was a lot of drama going on down there.
My first reaction was - whoa, that's a big spider - because it was actually larger than normal, but it had also caught a huge fly. Luckily, we missed the violent part and she was efficiently wrapping things up. So he just handed me the mail. It's funny how neither of us wanted to get any closer to her.
These ladies are probably Araneus diadematus or the common Eurasian garden spider. Their venom doesn't affect humans and supposedly they rarely bite, but they're still really creepy. They've got our house surrounded. Here's one of her sisters outside our patio. It looks like she's pretending not to have eight legs. Several more have taken up residence in the front window boxes, keeping me from planting winter pansies. Apart from that, I really don't have any problem with them as long as they stay outside and leave before it's time to decorate the porch.
Inside, two, tiny, wispy little spiders have been inhabiting the same spots for over a decade. Since they rarely live more than a season, I'm always surprised when the same type of spider shows up in the same place year after year. Agatha, the kitchen spider, shown in the photo above, lives under the coffee shelf. Upstairs, Dorothy hangs out in a corner by the bath tub. They're amazingly good at avoiding being swept up during regular cleaning and I always wonder why we never see any siblings, or the remains of their boyfriends.
Any other spiders caught wandering around are immediately dispatched. Except for whatever weaves these cobwebs! Are they microscopic? Has anyone ever seen one? I suspect there are hundreds living in the house that totally escape our notice. Isn't that a creepy thought!
Now that the growing season has ended I wonder how long Agatha will be around? She has been particularly helpful with all the fruit flies that come in on the tomatoes.
It looks like she will be well fed for quite awhile.
Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!
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