OK, so this is just a butterfly kissing a lantana, but how cool is that for an early digital photograph? For some reason our area got literally pummelled with butterflies last year. Swarms and swarms and swarms, different kinds wherever you went. And they stayed on well into the winter (at least until our big January freeze), at least at our house, due to all the butterfly-friendly plant life.
This summer we had a squatter move into the back window. Since she is smack dab behind where we hang out the laundry, this was somewhat startling a discovery the first few times. Definitely a she, even if one isn't too versed in arachnids...she built a big egg case in the corner. As of the moment (verge of October) she and the bambinos are still in the window, being very Charlotte's Web-by about things. Well, except for the actual web-writing. Though she does have that nifty ladder structure. I think she's a golden garden spider. She's definitely HUGE. I decided early on that as long as she didn't hurt us, we would leave her alone to do her pest-destructive vampire act in peace.
I haven't decided what we'll do when her kids hatch,
though. Probably we'll just freak out.
It isn't like I haven't done that before...as a kid I made the gruesome error of climbing up a tree to turn and find the trunk had a nest of tarantulas in it. Although most such things don't bother me, especially having a scientist for a dad, the idea of climbing back down over a torrent of skittery tarantulas did distress my nine-year-old cool so I screamed my head off until Dad could come and catch me.
However, it isn't like we aren't spider-friendly, for the most part. I have a rubber tarantula for Halloween wear, and ol' Spidey decorates the corner of the livingroom, by the other (non-garden-spidered) window. Hmm, I hope he's not the daddy of the egg-case kiddies...
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