Anyone reading this (thankfully, an unlikely scenario) will begin to wonder at the frequency with which spiders are mentioned in this blog...but I had another encounter with one that has made me think...and gave me a tiny insight into the concept of grace.

I was washing up and (luckily for the spider) before I began to run the water, I noticed a small spider down in the basin. I switched to the other side, all the while keeping an eye on her to see what she would do next. During the course of rinsing of dishes, etc, the poor thing tried repeatedly to climb up the wall of the sink and kept falling down. The thoughts of her slowly starving to death or worse, being inadvertently killed when I next washed dishes, were too unsettling so I determined to "rescue" her. I tried the first thing at hand - a fork - which she did *not* like and scurried away from, even when presented with the handled end.

After several other implements were tried and rejected by said spider, I finally hit upon the drain stopper and that met with her approval. I airlifted her to the counter and watched with satisfaction as she scurried off to the corner, probably never to venture out to the world of the sink again. It made me think of my biggest roadblock to believing in God - that I cannot fathom an infinite being of a vast universe concerning itself with such a small and inconsequential planet such as Earth, much less one of the billions of beings that inhabit it. Obviously, I am much more closely connected to the spider in terms of scale than this being would be to me but still, it made me think that perhaps such a thing could be possible.

good news?

Well, I have discovered that it wasn't a *black* widow that I had in that trash can last year. No, it was a brown widow. I discovered this because I have another one that I found as I was taking apart this old bird bath I had hanging around (I wanted to re-use the top for something else). Ugh. It still gives me the shivers. I didn't see her at first as she was balled up under the rim (although I was suspicious because the egg sacs looked so similar to the last time) so I blithely carried the bird bath out to the curb.

brown widow - eggs & markings

Realized later in the day that there definitely was a spider there - quite a large one, in fact. But still not too concerned b/c I could plainly see that is was brown and not black and that it had stripes on it's legs. Took a look at her with the headlights then when I got home just now. She had come out from being under the rim and was stretched out right in the middle of her web. I could see quite clearly that she had an orange/red marking on her abdomen and had that weird body shape that black widows have. Still, I thought, the striped legs, the brown body - surely it's an angiope.

angiope

Came inside to look up angiopes online. Definitely not the same spider. Then I thought to look up brown widows which I remembered hearing about earlier this year. Sure enough, brown widows also have striped legs and their color ranges from a light brown to an almost black - although they can get very dark markings and can sometimes be mistaken for a black widow. But the way you can tell them apart is that the brown widow has a spiky egg sac (see picture above). So that must have been a brown widow before b/c that was exactly what those eggs looked like then.

Apparently they are very prevalent in this area (http://sarasota.extension.ufl.edu/IPM/BrownWidow.htm) and their venom is twice as potent as the black widow. Isn't that nice? Luckily they are much less aggressive than the black widow and more likely to choose "flight" over "fight" which is probably why I haven't had a problem with them...other than scaring me 1/2 to death.

Not sure what to do about it now though. Should I kill it? I feel like I should so that the trash guy doesn't get hurt but now I'm nervous to go near it. (Which seems silly considering I carried it from the back yard to the front earlier AND was practically handling it when I was taking it apart.) I am never going to be able to get to sleep tonight - especially without being able to read!

UPDATE (3/23):
Well, I have killed it. Felt horrible because the spray (which I found in the garage from the previous owners) didn't work very quickly so I had to watch prolonged death throes, feeling more and more guilty all the while.

Here's a picture of her before her untimely death (most of her is still hidden under the edge):

backyard spider

For weeks I've been wondering what kind of spider it is that has moved in over the compost heap and so this weekend I've spent several hours scouring spider images to find a match. And when I say hours, I am NOT exaggerating! I knew it must be some type of orb weaver but even looking up "common Florida spiders" did not turn up anything that resembled it more than slightly. It was particularly evident since this spider has an odd body shape - very conical - which none of the spiders I was looking at seemed to have. (Although I was a little unsure b/c due to their position, I could never get a good look at them from the top).

Anyway, FINALLY discovered that what I have living all around my yard is the Leucauge venusta (aka "orchard spider"). Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information out there on them but I must say that they are beautiful spiders. They are also fascinating to watch.