Charlotte's Web

We are sad to announce that Charlotte... our spider... is gone.

Charlotte came to live at our house in June. We've passed under her sleeping every morning as we leave our front door and been greeted every other night (that was her routine) when she'd come out on her magificantly constructed web to do her duty of ridding the world of pesky bugs.

Charlotte preferred moths and larger bugs, leaving the little ones to either escape or tire themselves out on her web. She carefully chose the most ingenious spot for her web... right next to our front porch light and right in front of our front window. As you can imagine Charlotte was constantly watched by the small and even large inhabitants of our house. Addie so aptly named her Charlotte... a name fitting a large and lovely spider.

Charlotte was a Cat Faced Spider... yes, it is correct. Her face didn't look like a cat, it was actually her abdomen that resembled a little cats face. When we first noticed her she was a decent sized tanish spider with orangish stripes on her legs. With in a few weeks she grew from being the size of a pencil eraser to the size of a dime, at her later days her abdomen was the size of a nickel. As she grew the stripes on her legs faded and she lightened to the color of cream.

Not so recently we noticed Charlotte was "great with children"... quite great with them. Then a few days ago she stopped coming down to get moths and she failed to keep her web neatly constructed. Then she was no longer in her usual spot at the top outer corner of the window.

We feared the worst until we noticed she was far down on the house sitting above a crack in our siding. The next day her ample and expectant abdomen was small again and she guarded her sweet egg sack for 2 days.

Today she was gone, whether she walked off into the grasses or curled up and slept forever, we don't know. She is just gone.

What a wonder to behold!

And just like Wilber I am inclined to think Charlotte was one of the most beautiful, ingenious, delicate and graceful creatures God has ever made. I feel oddly privileged to have known Charlotte these nearly 5 months.

And, yes I'll admit I did look in her web for writing on a few occasions.