Accomplishments

[dancerjodi]

Its funny how excited I get by small things. I feel both accomplished and fulfilled by tiny bits.

Last night's hitting the gym, getting pet supplies, making dinner, going food shopping and cleaning up a bit made the day feel pretty productive. And, we dug out our Halloween decorations! We didn't go as nuts this year (moving from a larger to a smaller house made us pare down what we had). We'll still have a lighted purple spider web on our front porch, though. After decorating we snuggled in the living room with all of our halloween tealights lit, watching our "fireplace" (an electric wood stove). I really miss having an actual fireplace still, having grown up with one and then having one in Framingham that we used pretty often. Maybe some day we'll put a woodstove somewhere but for the time being I'm content with our cheezy fake one. Every time we sit there with the lights off on our smooshy couch of doom I just have to say, I love our house. The excitement still hasn't worn off, such a change from the Framingham place. The neighborhood feel does really make a difference!

We've also been hosting a new resident at the house as of late. We have a massive spider living on our back porch that's spun a huge web on the railing that runs on the right side of our steps. We've named him Fred, and he's a little bit smaller than a penny now. Its neat to see how the web changes each day, what he's caught in it, and what he's eating. The other day I caught him wrapped around a bee, and it was amazing how fast he (or she) made it through dinner. Brian's going to try and get a good pic of Fred at some point soon.

I love October. Spooky! :)

Comments

[rojagato.livejournal.com]

Fred's a Fredericka. ;)

[tk7602.livejournal.com]

so fred is a Very Generic Spider...

aka, a garden orb spider.

they are completely harmless to humans, very common in our area, and apparently very popular by the number of them i've found online.

there are over 1500 variants on the theme, but this photo looks pretty close:



interesting note... apparently they destroy / rebuild their webs regularly, so i guess we shouldn't feel guilty when we accidentally brush it ;)

they also frequently hide their food, so she might not have eaten her bee when we were watching - that might have just been the spider equivalent of putting the bee in a zip lock bag ;)

Mmmm

[cintyber.livejournal.com]

From what I know they capture the prey inject it with venom and then wrap it up tight for later eating. Thier venom contains special enzymes which start to digest the inside of the prey turning it into a liguid so when the spider goes back they just have to plunge thier fangs in and suck up the goo as if drinking a milkshake with a straw!

I do believe they will eat other spiders as well.

I watch way to much animal planet