It’s time to start cleaning up in the garden.
Be careful you do not remove some future friends.
We must not compost our companions.
You may recall my writing spider friends
named for the plants they lived on.
Two of the three left behind egg sacs.
Lucy (on the Lucifer) hid hers beside the gutter’s down spout.
Fern (on the Autumn fern) attached hers to the highest fronds.
I most be careful to leave these in a safe place.
It’s nice to know there are future friends
waiting in the garden.
Flow
I have to move carefully around my tall flowers.
That is where the writing spiders build their webs.
I do not wish to disturb their writing and eating. (Fern has caught quite a feast.)
I have three this month; one on the Lucifer(Lucy), another on the Gladiolias (Gladys)and a third on the ferns(Fern).
They are big and beautiful.
I enjoy checking on my female Arigope aurantia friends every day.
It’s interesting to watch them wrap their food for safe-keeping.
I am keeping an eye out for egg sacs.
Lucy has made hers.
Flow
What a lovely spot to wait for lunch!
This Crab Spider needs no web. She is waiting for her food to be delivered.
She patiently sits inside this Hoya bloom
for an unsuspecting moth to stop by for a snack.
Then the moth becomes a meal.
Seems like the moth should notice the carcass dangling below.
Sneaky spider!
FLOWER
Success for Mama Green Lynx/ Peucetia viridans.
She has not left the eggs sac for weeks.
Today is has been ripped open and dozens of tiny spiderlings are out.
She seems to have woven a web-playpen for the babies.
She moves around the cluster of young ones tapping them with her lovely spiky legs.
I feel privileged to have witnessed this.
FLOWER is a happy grandma.
Laugh if you wish.
I was concerned for my mama spider and her egg sac during last night’s storm.
I have been watching them both for weeks. She is a Green Lynx spider/ Peucetia viridans.
I was attracted to the head of goldenrod blooms by a peculiar object among the yellow flowers.
I saw her egg sac before I spotted her guarding it.
The color of the egg sac is a dull straw-brown, but the shape is intriguingly like a cut diamond.
It has a flat table top with crown  below it and pointed bottom,  like a culet.
How could a spider make such a complex shape? Â I wonder the same about the intricacies of webs, also.
I have been waiting for the spiderlings to emerge, so that I can examine it more closely.
The mama spider diligently guards this nest and puts her body over it when she senses my presence.
This morning I did get a better picture of the sac due to her dazed and soaking wet state when I approached.
She quickly assumed  her guard post when I touched the goldenrod.
I am so glad that she and her offspring are safe and sound after the wind and torrential rains.
I am considering staking the Goldenrod so that Mama Lynx will not have to hang like that.
I know I shouldn’t interfere, but we grandmothers are very protective.
I am also afraid that “Mr. Flower” will cut it down with the weed-eater. Â Oh my! Â I’d better stake it now.
I’ll keep you up-dated about the hatching.
FLOWER
floweralley 