Saturday, September 25, 2010

Odd Fondness...

So, earlier this summer a spider moved in.
Well, she didnt move into our home, she moved into our hallway, and established a web above our storage unit.
every night, she would build a beautiful web, and catch bugs. every morning...she was hiding in a corner, waiting for night.
She didnt bother us, and I decided to let her stay.
The entire summer has gone by; she got larger and larger, and her web got larger, but she stayed above our storage unit; when we opened the door, it did not alter her web (she had not attached any part of it to the door or anything) and she didnt drop down below the web to bother us, and so we ignored her. Every now and again though, we took pleasure in watching her do her thing, and got to show my son how spiders do thier thing. We developed a fondness for the spider. She never invaded on our storage unit space, just stayed right above it; every night, doing her thing...every morning, gone.

Well, she got pretty darn big. I was getting scared, and was thinking about 'reliving' her of her position. but I decided to wait a bit more. Recently, we looked for her in the evening....and she wasnt there. Well, she wasnt on her web. she was curled up, underneath the eaves of our storage unit, where the door opened. It was very hard for her to move(she was REALLY FAT by this time)...and she looked very uncomfortable.

Tonight, we saw that she had moved, and had created a very large egg sac on the outside side of the unit, where the door does not open.

My husband and I decided to look her up; if she was any threat, we would destroy the eggs. We found out she was a '"barn spider"; perfectly harmless, they actually used a barn spider as one of the main characters in 'Charolette's Web. (In reflecting on the book, after seeing her egg sac, I can understand how the pig must have felt carrying it in her mouth....it is a LARGE egg sac!)

We decided we will let them live. We've gotten very fond of the spider. We may relocate the egg sac, to a safer place, but not destroy them.

Its odd how things grow on you. :)

2 comments:

  1. We watched one of the "writing spiders" (they are also harmless) build a web at our old house. She didn't bother us so we didn't bother her. She laid her egg sac and then "left". The babies were fast so we didn't see them arrive. It was fun to watch her though....from a distance ;)

    Hugs,
    :) Heather

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