The Web...

I was calling this "Charlotte's Web," but that title has already been claimed by E. B. White.  And rightly so.

There is a huge spider web hanging over the steps of the front porch. In the center of this web sits a golden-yellow and black spider. Our old handyman W used to call this spider a "banana spider," because of it's coloring. I think the correct name is a "Golden Weaver."  In the center of this spider's web is a long zig-zag design, sort of the spider's signature after the web is completed.

And what a web....... so intricate in design, really beautiful, actually, if you just focus on the design itself and forget that there is a not-very-pretty black and yellow spider waiting in the middle of it all. And wait she does.... and that spider has caught crickets and beetles and flies and moths.  I've seen the spider wrap her legs around her prisoners, hugging them close to her.... possibly saying "Grace" before she sets into digesting them?

Every morning as I walk down the front steps to turn on the hose that will water the marigolds, I look closely up at that web, to make sure the spider is still up there.  I have to walk under the web to get to the water faucet which controls that particular hose..... but the roof is high, and the web is at least ten feet above my head, so I'm not as brave as you may think.  If there ever comes a morning when the spider is not in her web, I doubt very much that I will walk under that empty web. I wouldn't want to be surprised by that spider, meeting her eye to eye as I turn on the water.

It amazes me that the spider is so patient. I'm wondering if she leaves the web when the sun goes down..... venturing out into the nearby palms and crape myrtles, looking for insects. Is it possible that she just sits in that web all day and all night and just waits for her dinner to drop or fly in?

I think it's almost time to read my copy of "Charlotte's Web" again.  A classic story, never out of print, never out of style. I've sold so many copies of that book in my booth at the antique store.