A Spider Year

The spider and web in front of our kitchen window

 

A spider outside our bedroom window, about to get the broom.

When I came back from Alaska in September I found spiders all over the outside of our house. There were four of them every morning between the two bushes right in front of our kitchen window, they were on the bushes next to our front door, they were outside all our windows, and they were on the car. One morning I opened the front door to leave and there were two hanging right in the middle of our walkway. I just closed the door and went out the garage, it was too early in the morning to deal with spiders! We don't have screens on our windows (the house didn't come with any and we just haven't gotten around to buying them yet) so I was reluctant to open the windows on warm days and let the spiders crawl right in. I even had a dream one night that the spiders were waiting right outside the front door waiting to come in. Amazingly we've only had one IN the house so far - perhaps evidence that our house is well-sealed? I grew up with A LOT of spiders because our house in Chiniak had rough-cut wood on the inside, no sheetrock. It is a relief not to be squishing or capturing spiders all the time. A bunch of other people have told us they have lots of spiders this year too. I guess it's just a good year to be a spider in the Northwest.


Ryan finally went on a rampage with the broom and I haven't seen as many of them since. I know my mom is going to cringe when she sees these photos, but the webs really were beautiful in the morning with the sun shining on them, especially after it had rained. I thought they were worthy of a few photos. That said, I hope we don't have another bad spider year for a long time!


-Molly