Year of the Spiders
Speaking of spiders....
Around here, as with so many things, people both dread and welcome cold, snowy winters. Along with the good things that such winters do for the water table, it is commonly thought that cold temperatures cut down the number of bugs in the coming warm months. I've tried to confirm that but I don't know whether I can buy it.
I thought that last winter was unusually tough here even though it wasn't as severe as in many other parts of the country. Yet it's been a great summer for a lot of the insects and insect-like things, especially Japanese beetles and spiders. In fact, I can't remember ever have met up with so many spiders. They seem to be wherever I turn, including inside buildings.
That relationship of cold to the number of bugs depends on the species, too. A good year for some insects is usually a bad year for other kinds. So around here, this year, happily, has been notable for its relative lack -- so far -- of several kinds of tiny flyers that we generally call "gnats" but in places like Vermont are called "no-seeums." I'll take the spiders instead, because the larger and fiercer kind of gnats have a great liking for flying straight into my eyes.
The main actors among this year's spiders aren't colorful or especially large, nor are their webs of any great beauty, as spiderwebs go, but those webs are numerous and gigantic. Overnight these spiders can stretch their strands over spaces of 8 or 9 feet, from the ground to high overhead. And the strands are tough, lasting, and inconspicuous, so that I feel them across my face before I see them -- though in that case I never actually see them, do I, because I'm too busy trying to wipe their ghostly touch off me.
When I walk through the woods, I've taken to waving a stick in front of me, though I don't do it for long, because in my mind the image is ridiculous. A while ago I wondered in this weblog about the origin of the idea of shaking a stick at things. I guess, aside from schoolmasters, the utility of knocking down invisible yet very tangible spider strands makes a little sense.
There are so many of those creatures and their works around here in any year that I wonder how people who suffer from arachnophobia make it, just as I wonder about those who are hypersensitive to stings from bees, wasps, hornets, and the like. I know people who have to deal with both those dangers. I thank my lucky stars that those things don't bother me at all.
Spiders are second only to snakes on the list of the creatures that my neighbor, H., kills on sight, whereas I just let them go on their merry way. (It's been a good year for snakes, too. I've seen six or seven so far, of various species.) I haven't heard much from H. this summer. Maybe he is being kept busy inflicting on all the spiders what this past winter failed to do.
Around here, as with so many things, people both dread and welcome cold, snowy winters. Along with the good things that such winters do for the water table, it is commonly thought that cold temperatures cut down the number of bugs in the coming warm months. I've tried to confirm that but I don't know whether I can buy it.
I thought that last winter was unusually tough here even though it wasn't as severe as in many other parts of the country. Yet it's been a great summer for a lot of the insects and insect-like things, especially Japanese beetles and spiders. In fact, I can't remember ever have met up with so many spiders. They seem to be wherever I turn, including inside buildings.
That relationship of cold to the number of bugs depends on the species, too. A good year for some insects is usually a bad year for other kinds. So around here, this year, happily, has been notable for its relative lack -- so far -- of several kinds of tiny flyers that we generally call "gnats" but in places like Vermont are called "no-seeums." I'll take the spiders instead, because the larger and fiercer kind of gnats have a great liking for flying straight into my eyes.
The main actors among this year's spiders aren't colorful or especially large, nor are their webs of any great beauty, as spiderwebs go, but those webs are numerous and gigantic. Overnight these spiders can stretch their strands over spaces of 8 or 9 feet, from the ground to high overhead. And the strands are tough, lasting, and inconspicuous, so that I feel them across my face before I see them -- though in that case I never actually see them, do I, because I'm too busy trying to wipe their ghostly touch off me.
When I walk through the woods, I've taken to waving a stick in front of me, though I don't do it for long, because in my mind the image is ridiculous. A while ago I wondered in this weblog about the origin of the idea of shaking a stick at things. I guess, aside from schoolmasters, the utility of knocking down invisible yet very tangible spider strands makes a little sense.
There are so many of those creatures and their works around here in any year that I wonder how people who suffer from arachnophobia make it, just as I wonder about those who are hypersensitive to stings from bees, wasps, hornets, and the like. I know people who have to deal with both those dangers. I thank my lucky stars that those things don't bother me at all.
Spiders are second only to snakes on the list of the creatures that my neighbor, H., kills on sight, whereas I just let them go on their merry way. (It's been a good year for snakes, too. I've seen six or seven so far, of various species.) I haven't heard much from H. this summer. Maybe he is being kept busy inflicting on all the spiders what this past winter failed to do.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 10:24 AM
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