A Philosophical Approach

     "Aim high; adapt to difficulties; do your work; clean up after yourself."

     Last night, an ambitious spider the size of a fat cicada -- or an average thumb -- built a web outside the back door of my house, where the back part of the kitchen extends about six feet and overhanging eaves offer a little shelter.  The center was nine feet above the ground.

     The spider's shape resembled the Spiny Micrathena that visited a few years ago, but much larger and no spines.  She had gold bands on her legs, and was most probably an orb-weaver, a very large family of spiders.  Her web had four main anchor points: one up under the eaves, one on the crook of a downspout, one out of sight from the door, probably the sill of the west kitchen window -- and the last one ran all the way to a small pile of sticks on my patio!  Or so I inferred.  By the time I noticed her, it was too dark to see any of the web unless the sunset sky was behind it.  The spider would swoop down like a trapeze artist, apparently floating, tie a new strand to the anchor and head back up towards the center of the web.

     It was fascinating.  The spider's concentration was total, spinning and weaving.  I checked in several times though the evening and by the time I went to bed, she had completed the radials and was running a spiral of cross-strands.  I was considering the best path around the web to the garage for the next morning, since I would much rather have one spider than a surplus of flies and mosquitos.

     I woke in the night and it was raining.  A quick look out the back door found the grumpy-looking spider rerigging her web; the long ground-level anchor line had given way, and the web was flapping gently in the breeze.  While I watched, she got it well-secured at three points and went to work on repairs.  I went back to bed, thinking the problem of how to get by the spider without disturbing the web had been solved, leaving the problem of Tam's aversion to spiders overhead (and plotting, she says, to drop down on her) for later.

     This morning, the spider had solved it for me: there's not a trace of the web to be found!  The Spiny Micrathena had similar habits; she would make a new web every day, having taken the old one down at the end of her work.  Maybe this spider's on second shift.

     That's a pretty good tenant to have, one who works diligently and doesn't leave a mess.  My shy little indoor ghost spiders, who leave gossamer, dust-collecting traces in the ceiling corners week after week, would do well to follow her example.

Behold, the spider. Also, a cloud formation that looks like an enormous eye, watching the spider and me.