Another day on the ranch.

A year ago at this time, I was probably hanging mirrors and pictures all over the house. I left those for last, after all the boxes were unpacked and everything was in its place. Then I took one mirror, one picture at a time.... walked around the house with it, going in and out of each room, deciding where that mirror or that picture needed to be. I took my time, wanting to be sure, because I didn't want to be leaving holes in the walls if I hung something up in the wrong place. I must have done a good job, because I haven't had to change anything.

And why bring that up now? Because at this time last year, being so busy with mirror placement and picture hanging, I had no idea that there was an army of spiders outside building enough webs to span the globe. And not just little spiders....... but huge black ones with yellow legs, so large that they can probably wrap themselves around a jumbo-sized egg and still be able to touch their front legs to their back. And the webs..... an intricate kaleidoscope of sheer webbing with a long thick spiral curlicue in the center... so big that you could wrap a compact car in it.

I find these web masterpieces every morning, and that black yellow-legged spider is always right there in the center of it, with the thick curlicue of webbing right underneath him. They must build them all during the night (moonlight web-spinning) because I know they're not there in the late afternoons. Usually, these yellow-legged spiders build their webs in hidden spots-- behind the bushes, in the trees...... I've yet to see one covering a path or shimmering in one of the courtyards. I don't disturb their webs as long as I can see the spider sitting in them. Seems to me that once these huge spiders build their Rhode Island-sized webs, they just stay put in them and wait for their meals to get caught in the web. I keep these web locations on a mental map, tucked away in a corner of my brain so I don't forget where they are. The only thing worse than finding a spider web is walking into a spider web.

When I was a kid, I used to watch "Bonanza." Not the re-runs, but the actual Sunday night shows, when Ben Cartwright was the ranch-wise dad to Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe, and Hop Sing was there to keep house and cook meals. Not once did I ever see Little Joe get caught in a spider web as he walked around their ranch. Hoss did have problems with stubborn horses, and Adam did shoot a rattlesnake from time to time. But never once did anyone get stuck in a thick web constructed by a black spider with yellow legs. And never once did Hop Sing jump on a chair yelling Scorpion! Scorpion! while he was trying to get dinner together in the kitchen.

When I was a kid, I thought it would be so great to live on a ranch. So here we are, along with coyotes who howl in the night, snakes that slither along in the flowerbeds, scorpions with curled tails ready to sting, raccoons who eat our corn, skunks who eat the zucchini, possums that just look weird, armadillos that dig holes in the pine mulch, tarantulas that sun themselves on the porch railing, wasps that build condo-nests in every nook and cranny under the roof lines, and steroid-soaked spiders that can build a web the size of a small island overnight.

And me? I'm just trying to stay out of the way of all creatures and critters great and small, and I'm still looking for Hop Sing so he can cook the meals and keep house.