Chapter two in the saga of the anal spider.
Remember how I told you she had rebuilt her web, all clean and nice again? Well, it got clogged up with thistledown again. Oh, she tried her best to keep it clean and free of the thistle seeds--she really did--but she ultimately lost the battle. You should see the muscles this spider has developed from all the picking and weaving she's been doing. She looks like Schwarzenegger with eight legs.
So for a day or two, she picked them out, dropped them down beneath the web and wove and re-wove the strands. The bush underneath her web has amassed quite a pile of the little white seed puffs. Of course, they're everywhere, but beneath the web but they are also stuck together with little pieces of tattered web, forming a sticky clump.
This morning when I checked on her, I saw that the web was gone again. I could practically hear her little slippered feet stomping away in frustration as she muttered 'Mother Nature--what a slob!'
And just an hour ago, I went out there again, and--yep--the web is back. But it's been moved.
This is one smart spider, I thought.
She'd moved her web over about two feet to the left. The bushes beneath it are free of wind-blown thistle down--it's practically the only place in the garden that is free of the stuff. And she found it. She rebuilt the web, and perched herself in the center, and is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of unsuspecting bugs so she can make herself some well-earned dinner and get those eggs laid.
Only one problem: she failed to notice the huge praying mantis on the bush next door.
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