Despidering Day

Today was a rough one for the Frogpond porch spiders.  The pond is blessed with legions of flying insects and every last one of them is attracted to the lights from the house windows at night.  The spiders (as well as the toads, frogs and bats, but we'll save talking about them for another day.  You're very welcome)  think this lure is wonderful, and eagerly take up residence at the Frogpond Smorgy.  Every surface and crevice of the porch is prime spider real estate -- rafters, siding, light fixtures -- no vacancies anywhere.  The spiders then get to work spinning great festoons of webs that cling to the rough cedar siding of the house like glue.  I should be hosing down the siding at least once a month to keep on top of things, but it's such a wet, filthy, time-consuming process that it only gets done about three times a year. 

I sort of let things go a bit too long this year (even by my lax standards).


The corners are the worst



The bats use this corner for devouring their scorpions and crickets.  Note the dangling insect body parts and highly decorative mud dauber nest.

 

The light by the front door


 

More webs

  



  





 



In addition to the webs,  there are mud daubers' nests, the occcasional abandoned bird nest and, to finish off the look, a gray coating of surface dust over everything.  From a distance, our house looks (to my eye, at any rate) charmingly rustic.  From close up, it more resembles a small outbuilding from The Addams Family.

{An aside: One autumn, many years ago when my daughters were young, I decided to have a children's Halloween party.  I had a lot of fun shopping at the party store for decorations. and fondly remember standing on the porch holding three bags of those fake spider webs and looking up with a stupid look on my face.  Absolutely no fake webs neccesary -- no room.} 






I hosed the place down from 9:00 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon, and still wasn't finished.

 

Arby and Mulligan supervising

   

 

Wasp nest



I'd planned to wash down the entire house (since I was already completely soaked and covered in grime and webs, why not?), but something made me stop when I got to around to the carport. 

They were remarkably laid back for wasps -- I gave their nest several solid bull's eye squirts with the hose before I realized my mistake.  They just sort of cruised around, a little confused, but not at all cranky.

Not wanting to push my luck, I called it quits for the day.  Anyway, five hours of this kind of fun was quite enough for me.  Thank you, wasps!

Bruce can be in charge of evicting the wasps this weekend.  He'll be overjoyed.



 Now it's late afternoon.  The porch is looking pretty good (if you don't look too closely)...

Wolf Spider

...and the spiders are starting their engines.