Artists come in many shapes and sizes

This summer I have been admiring the work of a very small and yet very gifted artist who lives in one upper corner of my porch. She does amazingly beautiful web work, and I like to reward her from time to time by tossing a moth into her creation so she can have a nice meal. Tonight I decided to try to capture her with the camera. I couldn't really photograph the gossamer silk of her web, but I did get one of her wrapping her dinner.



As best as I can determine, she's a Neoscona crucifera, or a Hentz' Orbweaver.

I am actually horribly afraid of spiders, to the point of an unreasonable phobic sort of reaction to them, but I have always felt somewhat differently about the orb-weaver spiders like this velvety brown lady and her flashier cousins the garden-spiders and orchard spiders. I still would probably wet myself if one actually touched me, but their web work is an amazing thing to behold and I can appreciate good art wherever I come across it.

The spiders which give me nightmares are these:



This is a funnel weaver, or a grass spider... an Agelenopsis, to be precise. They weave these sheet-like non-sticky webs with a funnel where they hide, and when something walks across the outside sheet, they race out and attack it with heart-stopping speed. Spiders like these that move super-fast are the kind I am most horrified by. They like to live all over our porch, too. I like to get a broom and make their webs disappear, but I'm usually even afraid to use a broom on their webs because the idea that one of the spiders might get onto the broom handle and crawl up it ... oh, garsh, that just gives me the cold shivers. AAAHH! Oh good grief, Bijou, why do you have to walk by my foot just at the wrong moment? Holy cow, I think I need a change of clothes.

I don't have the same visceral fear of snakes... I do have a healthy respect for the venomous kind, but I'm not in the least bit afraid to pick up a garter snake or a ball python. In fact, I think they're awesome.

Do YOU have any phobias?