araneides

I know fall is on its way when the writing spiders show up. There are several of these huge, black and yellow spiders in the backyard. There’s one a bit over 1 ½ inches long, and I’m not including the legs! The spiral web is rather intricate, and has a large, bold zigzag down the center. It looks pretty neat with the morning dew sparkling in the sun. Since my writin’ spiders are so gigantic, they may live anywhere in the yard they wish. After all, they are very beneficial to the garden.

Don’t misunderstand me – I do not care for spiders in the least. When my son was just a few weeks old, the two of us had a very traumatic life experience. I was holding my tiny, helpless baby when someone opened the front door of the apartment and an extremely huge spider walked right in. Of course, I started screaming and screaming while jumping up and down on the seat of a chair. I guess I should mention that all the while, I was still holding onto my baby. My husband attempted to shoo the spider back outside when all of a sudden, hundreds of itty bitty, teeny weenie baby spiders began crawling off the back of their mommy. They quickly scattered up the door and up the wall and onto the table and across the floor. My husband was our hero! He saved his wife and baby! I have never witnessed such a terrifying incident, and I don’t care to ever again!

Years later, long after leaving SC, I learned that the monstrous spider was a Carolina Wolf spider. In 2000, someone had the nerve to designate the thing the SC state spider. I’m very thankful we had the good judgment to move back home to NC.

Look very closely at mommy’s back, and you can barely see the itty bitty, teeny weenie baby spiders. Of course, the one that invaded our home was approximately four times this size!