What Writing Spiders Write
Whatever it is (if anything more than the zigzag of z’s below center stage) they’d better write it quickly and close up shop.
The cool damp makes sluggish morning spiders easy enough victims of bird breakfasts that I’d expect to see more wings across the field after a dewy dawn.
But then, I wouldn’t want to fly head first into a sticky web for a mouthful of spider.
Overnight temps into the upper thirties are expected within a week, and smoke will once again curl out of the chimney–off and on, to start–then only ON until the first week or two of March. Tending the fire is kind of nice. At first.
Of course this projection of the season ahead is based on a normal winter. Is there any such thing anymore?
Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.
Snakes and spiders are my least favorite life forms…but the webs spiders spin are beautiful, must say!
Did you take this beautiful photo with your phone?
Nope, this kind of shot (where getting too close can spook the living subject) was one of the reasons I recently got the Panasonic Lumix FZ200 with an optical zoom of 24-600mm (w constant F2.8). I’m still coming up to speed with it, and the outdoor shooting season (apart from snow and ice) is about done for six months. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fz200