When we homeschooled there was a beautiful, silver faced, spider that wove it’s web in our garden room window at eye level.
We could watch it from inside the house and marvel at the precision of her work. Often we witnessed the unwitting faux-pas when an insect fell into the sticky trap.
One year the Anthropod set up camp on a wall adjacent to the bank of windows we were used to observing it from. I found a plastic cup and moved her a few feet along where she took up spinning without dropping a stitch and entertained us for another season.
A most gracious and complicit creature from the Animalia kingdom.
After decades of Springs we sold our house and I’ve watched for this arachnida and found it in the woods, dotting long grasses and on the sides of metal barns.
I feel at home when in the company of this waspish, awesome, agile, Argiope.
Commonly known as the large black and yellow garden, corn or (the children’s favorite because it’s so explicit), zipper spider, she is harmless and provided long moments of pleasure as we watched it constructing its Stabilimenta forming the centre of its masterpiece. This distinctive symmetry reflects UV light and possibly attracts prey to blunder into the surrounding web.
We would stand mesmerized by the brilliance of this creature’s skill.
Lately I found one hanging from the side of our rubbish bin at Footlights, paused in its classic St Andrew’s Cross pose,
begging to be photographed, her classic web quite visible against the green.
She straddles her signature as she writes.
This has to be my favorite common name for her,
The Writing Spider.
She provides me with inspiration to persevere in the work I enjoy most in the hopes that one day I will snare a deal with my own compositions.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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2016-11-30 16:45:23
Nice article. I remember the one at the old house!
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