Spiders. It IS October.

We live in an old, old farmhouse.  A bungalow.  I would describe it as Craftsman, given the incredible wood trim and detail in the interior, but ca. 1887 Old Farmhouse was around decades before trendy Craftsman, and so there we have it: Old Farmhouse.

For years I ran my in-home business (www.bio-works.us) out of the comfort of our first-floor study. It is adjacent to a bathroom and the kitchen, and, if tornado needs-be, the basement.  This worked out very nicely until one day I woke up with the epiphany that I would not have to frantically toss all business-related material into brown grocery bags and haul them into the study closet every time we have overnight guests, if I would simply move "BioWorks" upstairs to one of the empty nest rooms.  (Our study has a really comfortable bed, a darkened room, adjacent to aforementioned bathroom and kitchen, and if tornado needs-be, the basement; it is always our go-to room for overnight guests.)

So now my little office is upstairs,  nestled in a nook of dormers which overlook the front of the house.  I can see the field across the way, which this season is sporting dusty rows of soybean.  I can watch cars and trucks and farm implements heading hither and thither.  (I can always tell, even before checking the weather, when rain is anticipated, by the activity of the farm implements out & about.)  I can wave at neighbors walking past, and even bang on my closed windows at cyclists/friends going by.  The UPS and Fed Ex folks know to honk and look up at my windows to catch my attention.

The past few days, I have had my own little Charlotte's Web going on in one of my dormer windows.  This spider is busy, busy each and every morning and afternoon, making a web in the same place, catching little "things" which have the unfortunate circumstance of alighting in her/his web, and then the whole web-spinning/blood-sucking. (What?!  You've never read Charlotte's Web?!!)

Which brings to mind my other arachnid friend, a Daring Jumping Spider which took residence in my car on the way to Colorado last week.  Daring Jumping Spiders are daring in that they jump, but they are harmless to humans and are sort of fun to watch.  Well! This spider showed up on my drive to Colorado.  He crawled out of one of the air vents.  I let him go A) because he is harmless, and B) I was driving 75 mph.

Each day after, I would get into the car and commence driving.  After several minutes, there would be Daring Jumping Spider, showing his existence in my car by floating down a spinneret from an air vent, or landing in my lap, or crawling along the passenger seat.  Whenever it was safe, driving-wise, I would scoop him up with the plan of dropping him out the window. But he had his own plans, and each scoop-him-up ended with him dropping down onto the floor of the car.

I haven't seen Daring Jumping Spider since I returned to rural Kansas.  Maybe he liked the higher elevation of Breckenridge.  As for my own little Charlotte's Web outside, I can see she/he has begun another web now, at dusk.  In that beyond these dormer windows and my "office" is also my Art Room, and I intend to spend time creating this evening, I suspect Charlotte will not be going hungry in the next few hours as the interior light begins to attract buggy visitors...