Because it's about to begin all over again. . . .

8/6/2008 2:00:34 AM

My experiment with the spiders is running amok. Not with the mothers, Suzanne and Suzette -- they are staidly ensconced in the bathroom window where I can easily observe them. Nope, it's the children. Suzanne's brood is now four egg cases open and running around, and Suzette has one of her three are birthed. Suzanne has cut the first opened-and-emptied three loose, has the fourth one open, and is working on another. Interestingly, she's made two interim cases, which she then cut loose. I don't know if they were somehow defective, or if she was just giving them a chance to get further away from a picked over area. At any rate, I'm beginning to see evidence of the children's work all over the house. And my are they energetic little buggers! Some mornings on my way to the bathroom, I walk through overnight webs in both doors. One of them's set up housekeeping on the lamp on the kitchen table, and, and, and. . . . I know soon I'll have to get the vacuum out and go to town, but not just yet. The babies still tickle me: dropping from the ceiling and hanging there before reversing themselves and climbing speedily back up their thread. Or startled, cuttin' loose of it and running like krezzy. Still not that fond of snakes though, so guess there's still a bit of the girly girl in me, ya think?



.

Posted: 8/7/2008 6:14:45 AM
Charlotte's daughters

Small clowns
weaving their tiny
webs, too small to catch
a thing

How hungry they must be
How like a miracle their survival

I haven't the heart to brush
their webs away
Wish instead to watch them
grow, succeed. . . .

Knowing, even as I cheer them on,
that eventually the housekeeper in me
will take care of them
No good answers here, at all.


Spider Chronicles

Suzanne the Queen of the Bathroom Spiders, hatched her last nest last week, and although the cloud of babies is still hanging around, she cut the egg case loose last night. Suzette, still has *all * five of hers. Who'd a thunk spiders had personalities, lol!? Not me. But Suzanne is definitely anal retentive, and Suzette is clearly *not*! The new one I've been watching is the dining room table spider, making her web on the table's lamp.

I'd actually been wondering about the lack of fella spiders observed, when what *might* have been one showed up courting Morganna (the table spider). Slightly smaller and a bit redder, he plucked her web till she came running, he leaped and grabbed her in a serious embrace for about a minute then fled to the edge of the lampshade for 24 hours. Then for about three days they shared her web but stayed a good distance apart. At that point I googled spider love making, the results of which didn't bode all that well for Morganna's possible mate. And sure enough, this morning, he was gone. I checked the "leavings" on the table, and there he was, entombed along with a fly. My guess is that he made so bold as to try for a fly and while he was munching down, she came and got him. . . . It appears that Black Widows are not the *only* widows in the spider world. After all, one love making session can leave the lady with all the sperm she'll need for all of her baby making, at which point *he* becomes simply competition for possibly scarce food.

Morals: 1. Don't be greedy and 2. don't be a male spider.


Now is the time

Posted: 9/15/2008 7:13:03 PM
Something new and startling, to me, has happened in the Spider Chronicles: Last week, Suzanne, our anal retentive house keeper was just sitting in her immaculate web doing jack shoot. Suzette, in her messy web was getting ready to hatch her last egg case. When I came in one morning, there was new small wolf spider hanging around the base, and Suzette was hanging upside down in the bottom of her web. When I blew gently, she moved a little, but didn't run back up to protect the egg case as usual. Jumping to conclusions, I killed the wolf spider, and Suzanne ran down her web to check it out. When I came back the next time, Suzanne had carried Suzette up to her web and was, best as I can describe, "holding" her. When I blew, she'd leave, Suzette would move a leg or two, and then Suzanne would come back, and "hug" her again. Suzanne would only leave to go take care of flies trapped in her web, which she would as usual, wrap up, eat, and then cut out of the web. The rest of the time, for two days, she just held Suzette. The third morning, I came in, and Suzette's last egg case had been moved up to Suzanne's web, right next to Suzette, who'd placed one leg on it. When I checked again, later, Suzette was gone, and the egg case had birthed its babies, which Suzanne is now watching.

Reasonable or silly, I'm going to have to vote spiders into the league of living things with souls.


♥


10/30/2008 5:35:55 PM

Sad to report that Suzanne has died. She is survived by two egg cases. The next to last one was amazing, and the only one she did like this: first the regular brown one, and then, around the outside with just the merest gap for air? insulation? another whole envelope of shiny sparkling web. Looks like a giant tear drop. This one, I think is meant to last until spring. And then finally, another one, about half the size of all the rest, as if a last ditch effort. She was okay if very quiet the night before she died, and then just gone. Leaving her genetic promise for the next season silhouetted in the window. Going to clean up the rest of the webs/spiders soon. That one I'm leaving. Herald of spring?