No longer our neighbor

**Warning all arachnophobes...the photos in this post are very detailed (meaning they will freak you out even if you don't click on them)**

Does the title of my post give you hope (or sadness) that the spider chronicles are over? Stay tuned...

I've been a little concerned that my interest in the spider is driving him away. After the picture I posted last time, where I caught him mid-scurry, I didn't see him at all for the rest of that day (yes, I was checking). The next morning (yesterday), the web between the two houses was gone, and this was his new hangout:


Thankfully he still preferred to build his web on the neighbor's side of the fence. I wanted to get a good shot so I ran over to the neighbor's side to snap my pictures, and sure enough, somehow he sensed me there and took off to the eaves again. After the second such encounter he disappeared, and his web remained empty all day yesterday and most of the day today. I am learning a lot about the habits of our friend though...I have never seen him build a new web until he's taken down the old one. So even though I was worried that he had disappeared, I had a feeling that as long as his web was still there, he'd be back. This evening, just before dusk, sure enough, there he was. I was happy. It's strange--I've always hated spiders so I don't know why I'm so fascinated with this one. I went and put my kids to bed, content in my knowledge that my friend had returned. An hour or so later, I was on the cell phone and it wasn't getting good service inside the house, so I stepped outside onto the front porch. I was sitting, unsuspecting, on the porch swing, chatting away, (it's completely dark outside by this time) and was startled by movement just above the railing of the porch about a foot in front of my face. I froze, looked closer, and sure enough, it was the spider! Now, I've got to tell you, that this encounter was much too close for my comfort. In order to get up from the porch swing I had to lean slightly forward (toward the spider), so it took me a few moments to get up the nerve, but I ran inside and grabbed my camera, because I was pretty sure that the spider was in the process of building a new web. I'll post the video footage tomorrow...it's taking too long to upload tonight. Try to continue living your life as usual in the meantime. :)

As creepy as it was, and as much as I don't know how I feel about this monster spider building its web on our front porch, I sat outside for about 30 minutes watching him at work and it has got to be one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. I don't know if I'm going to be able to destroy, or ask Brian to destroy, such painstaking workmanship. But do I really want to harbor this thing right in front of my house? I don't know...

Brian got home from Stake Conference and showed me that he should have been the one taking the photos all this time. Check these out!




These have got to be some of the best spider photos I've ever seen. Do all spiders have that super-short third pair of legs? Oh, the things we're learning about spiders around here.

I was right about his habits though. After watching him build this web, I took the flashlight and checked the spot where his other web had been, and it's completely gone. I am really intrigued by this. He doesn't ever abandon a web, he very deliberately removes the old one before moving on. Isn't that cool? This is also why I feel confident that I'm watching the same spider and not a few different ones. He's becoming somewhat predictable, and it's really kind of fun. Cole loves going outside every day to check for the spider web--it's a little biology lesson going on right outside our door. So long as he doesn't actually move in, we'll probably keep watching and learning, and you lucky blog readers will get to join the fun.

Yes, he's no longer our neighbor...he's our resident.