DocAndersen
I found this spider at my parent’s old house in Bloomington Indiana. I spent a lot of time trying to get the perfect picture of him/her. Yes, they were that big of a spider. The colors (yellow) were bright, and I was fascinated by the spider. My wife gave the spider a wide berth. It was sitting on the end of my parent’s new deck. They had replaced the old deck of the house and had added a screened in eating area. They, my parents had a screened in eating area at the farm, finally adding one at Kinser Pike a good ten years into owning the house. The screen in eating areas is nice when you live in a part of the world with lots of mosquitos. We ate out in that area often.
The spider sat on the end of the deck that was half the screen in eating area, and half dad’s garden. The spider built his/her web between a couple of plants on the end of the deck area. I have a couple of nature studies I did over the years in Dad and mom’s old backyard. One year I was fascinated by the birds that came to the bird feeder and took quite a few pictures of the birds. For me, summer pictures are more, point, sweat and move on. In the fall it is crisp and cool so I can focus on one event or one thing. Sometimes it is a miracle of a spider such as the ones in the pictures I am sharing. Spiders to me, with their ability to spin webs and to be so incredibly cool, are creatures I find incredibly interesting.
The event that October was for the kids to have fun with pumpkins. Mom and Dad hosted things like that for the grandchildren many times a year. Most of them were things I found interesting. Pumpkin decoration not so much, ergo the time to study the spider. Funny how one event often leads to a new and different event. Pumpkin decoration led to spider study. I wonder if the spider had hitched a ride on a pumpkin. Or if he or she had simply wandered into my father’s then nature preserve of a backyard (he even had the official sign from the state of Indiana). I know later when we came to visit from Maryland that Dylan thought dad’s backyard was the greatest play yard ever. His yard (Dylan’s) in Maryland at that time was pretty well, useless. Dylan loved coming to see my dad.
Love those beautiful garden spiders. The only one I like.