Oh, What A Web We Weave

Do you remember the book, Charlotte's Web, written by E.B. White?  It was a children's story about a pig named Wilbur who was the runt of the litter.  Because Wilbur was such a runt, the farmer was going to kill him.  The farmer's daughter, Fern, however, talked her dad into saving the pig.  Fern cared for Wilbur, fed him with a bottle, put him in a baby stroller, and became very attached to Wilbur.

Soon Wilbur became too large to keep.  Mr. Zuckerman, a farmer nearby, purchased Wilbur.  Wilbur arrived at his new home and had no friends at first.  Then someone spoke to him.  It was Charlotte, a big grey spider.  Wilbur and Charlotte become close friends and all is going well until it is discovered that Wilbur will be killed and will turn into Christmas Dinner. 

Charlotte?

Charlotte hatches a plan to save Wilbur's life by writing notes in her web above Wilbur that say, "Some Pig!" and things like that.  People in the town flock to the farm to read the messages and the pig about whom they're written.  Wilbur's life is saved!

What a story!  I left off the sad part and the end.  You'll have to go read it again for yourself.  As I walked out to the barn this weekend, right above the barn gate a banana spider had spun a web.  She had caught breakfast and was wrapping it all up.

Her web looked out over a mud hole that Rosie, our Jersey cow, likes to lay in each day in order to cool herself.  Each day we have to give Rosie a bath before milking her.  We don't have pigs on our farm, but each and every day, we call Rosie a pig.  The spider above our barn gate hadn't written "Some Pig!" in her web, but her web gave her a panoramic view of Rosie in her mud hole, and I'm sure that she (like us) certainly thought it.  Hopefully the weather will cool off soon so our 'pig' will stop laying in the mud all day.

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:

Two Banana spiders twirled on the end of my stick

Diners at the Spider Cafe

Looking Over the Menu

An Action Shot:

"I'll have the spider-on-a-stick, please."

So while we got back connected to the Web today, suffice it to say that there are some at our address who lost their connection to their web today.