Impostor!

Since I know you've all been anxiously awaiting an update on our friendly arachnid, I'll oblige you. We left the little critter (okay, BIG critter) on our front porch during Stake Conference on Sunday, but when we got home I decided he had to go. I just couldn't handle him right there every time I walked in the door. He had caught a couple of tasty treats overnight so I figured his web had served its purpose. We tried to just scare him off, but he wouldn't be scared. This was my first clue (aside from the pictures Brian took, which just didn't look quite the same as the previous ones, superior photo-taking abilities aside) that this might not be the same spider. The spider we all knew and loved ran for it the second I came within a foot of his web. This one wouldn't budge even when I tapped on his web with a stick! So, I broke the anchoring strand on the bottom of his web. He still stubbornly stayed put. We sat and watched in fear and amazement to see what would happen next. Suddenly he began a very quick descent, then stopped about halfway between the roof and the railing, suspended on one of his nifty spider threads. I shrieked and pulled Cole back several feet, then told Brian, "Go get a jar...it'll be easy to catch him there!" So he grabbed a jar and caught him. We still thought this was our buddy, so we took some footage of him scrambling around inside the jar (he was not happy about being held captive) and then took him across the street to the dog park and let him go. It was a sad parting but he'd made the faux-pas of invading our personal space...what could we do?

But then the pieces started falling into place. His lack of fear, the difference in the way he looked in the photos...then I went and checked where the previous web had been (you'll remember how I'd noticed he never builds a new web before taking down the old one) and voila! The old web was still there! I suppose my check with a flashlight the night before hadn't been thorough enough. Sure enough, Sunday evening our familiar, scaredy-spider buddy was back. It's nice to know that our "real" spider friend had the grace not to come too close for comfort like that.

As of this post, I think I've made four posts about the spider without making any posts about my family. So, I hereby swear that we'll post a real update before posting spider news (though the way things are looking we may have to adopt him). Ha ha...