Our New "Pet"

I've blogged about the deer and the wild turkey. We've got a bear who I keep missing. I guess that's a good thing--though I am eager to meet him!

(By the way, did y'all know that deer hiss? Yup, its true. One hissed at me the other night!)

We've got lots of spiders too. The daddy long legs freaked me out at first but I'm growing used to them.

Then the other day, I noticed the most magnificent spider who spun a magnificent web between two trees in our front yard. She's not a small spider--thick in the abdomen with longish hairy legs. She's about an inch long--brownish reddish. At night, she sits in the middle of her large circular web.

When Norton and I go on our morning walk, her web is gone. She's curled up in an almost fetal position on a nearby leaf. Its almost cute.

Then at night, she's back on her web. Eric and I did some research on my pet spider, Mae.

To the best of our knowledge, she's a garden orb-weaving spider. She spins her giant web at night and takes it down by dawn. Thank goodness, they don't bite humans often and their bite is non-toxic.

However, the fright of this spider crawling across your face can cause heart attacks--especially if you're over 40. I'm not making this up.

Their life span is about a year.

Here's a pic of our Mae at night.


It was really hard to get a good picture of her at night. But thats the only time she's not curled up sleeping on her leaf.

Here's another pic I borrowed from this site.