Charlotte's Web

The miracle of nature unfolded before our very eyes yesterday. It was a wonder to behold as we marvelled over the instinctive nature of the world around us.

My aunt and I were enjoying the beautiful day on the deck outside her apartment when I noticed a spider spinning a web from her upstairs neighbor's deck onto a planter on my aunt's deck railing. After we followed the spider making its way down, we watched it go back up again. Then down. Then up. Then down and across and up again. This busy little spider did this several times and then started skittering around the webs it had created.

"I think it's making a web!" I squealed in delight. We couldn't see the web from the deck but I stepped outside the deck onto the grass and could make it out. I am almost certain that industrious little spider created this web in its entirety while my aunt and I watched.

It never stopped. It went up, down, up, down, up and sideways, down and back; then around and around and around until its masterpiece was complete. Then it rested. It was still sleeping soundly in its web when I left.

You can't see the web in this video but this is when the spider was going around and around in its final laps of its construction.

You can just barely make out the web here. If you look upwards, you can barely see the contrast of the light threads of the web against the brown part of the balcony above.

I felt a kinship towards this busy little spider and named her "Charlotte", as she went about her business, building a web. Then patiently awaited the arrival nature's version of a SkiptheDishes delivery.

I stood and marvelled at the design, construction and end result of this spider's work. How did it map out where to brace its web as it spun its way to the next bracing point on the web? It is one thing to go "down", but to find its way across to the wind spinner that was hanging from the deck above? How does a spider defy gravity and spin a web in a horizontal position? Does it instinctively pace out the distance between braces? Does it plan ahead or does it just start spinning? And its ability to produce the required amount of "webbing" on demand?! Nature is amazing.

Watching a spider build a web. Rabbit spotting. Watching a crow watch our cat who was perched atop the play structure so he could watch birds in the neighbor's tree...

Ray (the cat atop the play structure) is watching the birds ... outside of this picture frame is a crow (perhaps it was a raven - it was at least as big as Ray), sitting in another neighbor's tree watching Ray. The circle of life (I'm glad they were all just "watching" and no one was harmed in the making of these memories).

Can I imagine a life where I have the time, desire and opportunity to watch nature reveal its miracles right before my eyes? I can sure try ...