Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet Sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey; Along came a spider, Who sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffet away. Cute nursery rhyme, but in realty if Miss Muffet was living here she would have had a breakdown by now and would be enjoying life in a padded room. According to local sources, due to the wet summer, we have been overwhelmed with spiders. Some are HUGE!! You cannot take a stroll through the yard or orchard without a stick in your hand to swat away any webs. If you look in the top-center of this photo you can see part of a spider web.

Look again,,,that is not a light colored branch coming straight down.

Now these are not your normal black and yellow garden spiders. Those guys built several webs among the branches of the fig tree. These HUGE spiders are over achievers. One morning I found a web that stretched from the fig tree in the lower left corner of the photo over to the trees on the right hand side of the photo. Thankfully this web was just above my head so I didn't walk into it.

One night they tried to surround us. This guy was building his web from the chimney down to the roof and then over to the 10' x 12' gazebo we have on the back deck.

Meanwhile, his relative was behind us, hanging out in the trees, just waiting. I highlighted him on his web. Not pictured was the poor relative who spun his web in the corner of the sliding door onto the back deck. Same day we found him, we found two more of his relatives had spun their webs on our gazebo. Word of advice, NEVER, EVER, hit one of these HUGE spiders with a stick. The sound is sickening, sort of like hitting a very ripe grape or small tomato.

On the bright side, I found this empty bird's nest on one side of the house. Mike looked at it and said it was a Wren's nest.

I loved the streamers they used. Maybe a new family will come and use this nest and eat some of the HUGE spiders,,,,one can only hope. And in addition to the spiders the stink bug population is out of control.

NOTE: As I am finishing this post Mike and I can see the start of a new spider web that goes from the roof of the Honda which sits in the center of the driveway, over to a cedar tree at the front walk. Thankfully we noticed it before I take the girls out for their next walk.