Our Maker's Acres Family Farm: The World Wide Web

Last night when I settled down in my comfortable spot to blog/journal/ruminate, I attempted to connect to the web and I kept getting the message: Resolving Host... I never could get an Internet connection and after trying for a while, I gave up and concentrated on finishing up studying for the Sunday School lesson. I teach the youth class at our church and the topic was Creation and the text was Psalm 104. Some things happen for a reason, Psalm 104 is a great Psalm that deserves reading over a few more times.

Although we had no access to the world wide web yesterday at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, we had plenty of other webs - spider webs! We have many banana spiders all around the homestead. They weave enormous webs literally overnight. When we walk out to milk in the morning, I've walked through them. The web is strong, elastic, and feels like silk threads. It gives me the creeps when this happens because I don't want a huge spider on me. The biggest ones will easily fill the palm of your hand. Here are a few that I took pictures of today:

By Russ' truck

Underneath the kitchen window

On the west side of the house

On the south edge of the property against the woods

Some might think these spiders are a menace, but they really aren't. They play an important role in the ecosystem and we appreciate all the bugs that they catch in their webs and eat. The banana spiders also play another role besides predator - they become prey. The best way to describe it is through a parody of the English nursery rhyme, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

The Big Banana Spider spun his web along the brick,

Along came Kyle with his white fiberglass stick,

He twirled all the webs and spiders on the end,

And fed the banana spiders to all our chicken friends.

I forgot to mention that this macabre agricultural nursery rhyme is illustrated. See below: