Donc. Voila.: We Ain't 'fraid of No Spiders!

Our spider friend... difficult to see what he really looks like... so, here is a better picture of the black and yellow argiope:

We went to Freddie's parents' home this past weekend to visit an old friend of Freddie's from high school and to hang out with his Mom and Dad. We had a very nice time relaxing and eating (and eating and eating some more) and napping and watching football (I will leave it at that) and spending time with family. Yesterday evening we were outside playing hide and seek and kickball when we ran across this huge spider hanging from a web between two indian hawthorne bushes. It was a black and yellow argiope spider - commonly referred to as a writing spider because there is a conspicuous white zig zag of silk spirals woven into the center of the web. It has been theorized that these visible lines help prevent birds and other flying animals from damaging the web.* Far more info on spiders than you probably ever wanted to know. So, there you go.

Josh and Sophia were fascinated by this arachnid. Well, we all were, really. I kept having Arachnophobia flashbacks and thought for sure the wretched thing was going to fly through the air with sticky silk streaming from its abdomen and land on my forehead or something. Nevertheless, I couldn't keep my eyes off. The kids found a stick and were poking the poor thing which would cause the spider to start bouncing the web. I am assuming to ward off enemies. It didn't run these predators off. They thought it was the coolest. And, yes, the spider did survive.

*All educational information regarding the black and yellow argiope spider in the first paragraph did not originate from some useless knowledge stored in my brain... it can be found on wikipedia.com.*

Joshua ever so carefully disturbing the spider.

Sophia chasing Joshua after she scared him to death by tickling her fingers on his shoulder pretending to be a spider as he was concentrating on disturbing our spider friend. It was hilarious to see him jump.