Spider
Friday morning I discovered a lovely spider sitting in the beautiful web she (or he? how can you tell?) had strung between the driver’s side mirror on the Prius and the driver’s side window. I thought it was a shame that her web would get blown away on the drive into Cooperstown, but I couldn’t really stay home for her convenience. She was buffeted by the wind, especially when I got up to 55 outside of Hartwick, but she hung on, and so did the web. It was still intact when I pulled in to the parking lot at the Sports Center. I had to remember not to be distracted looking at her on the drive – scanning the road ahead for deer needs all my attention. I have learned that the speed limit has a lot more to do with how far ahead I can see a deer than with how skillfully I can navigate a turn.
Not surprisingly, the spider was still there for the drive home, and was there this morning when I headed out to the Farmers’ Market. The driver’s side window was covered in dew, and there was no way I could get good enough visibility without taking the squeegee to it and damaging her web, though I tried to leave as much of it intact as I could. As I started down the driveway, the spider retreated to the upper edge of the window, where she could hang on out of the wind as much as possible. She was still on the window when I arrived back on the hill with raspberries, peas, cauliflower, carrots, lettuce, an eggplant, and radishes. The summer bounty at the Farmers’ is fabulous.
She raises so many questions. Why did she choose that spot for her web? How did she find it? How does she hang on in the wind? Why didn’t she leave for someplace less volatile when I stopped? How does her fine silk withstand the wind? How do any of us decide where to make our homes and why do we hang on when the going gets rough? I think of people rebuilding after floods, earthquakes and tornadoes. The spider is no more stubborn than the rest of us. Where would be safer anyway, and how would she know? I wonder if her hunting will be successful, if the same thing that drew her to the window will draw her prey to it. And I’m grateful that I have the market, and don’t have to spin and weave for a meal.
Cooperstown was quiet this morning. The onslaught of Induction Weekend is over, and it’s back to normal tourist time. A few sleepy looking tourists cross Chestnut and Main with their takeout coffees, heading back to hotel rooms. At 8:00, when the Market has just opened, there are still free parking places on Main Street. The Market is bustling, and there’s a long line to pay at Heller Farm’s table. But it’s mostly locals there, who know well enough to get in and out early during the summer.
Jay has done about 2/3rds of the second brush hogging of the season, and Mike and his ten year old son Aiden are hard at work this morning taking down the fencing that Karen had put up for her horse. I thought it was goofy to bother taking it down, but I have to admit that it really improves the view. We’ll have to figure out where to put the nesting boxes that hung on fence posts next spring, but for now, the uninterrupted view is lovely. Jay is triumphing over the dense goldenrod, not giving it time to bloom and reseed itself. But in the process, all the beautiful complexity of the meadow appears to be gone, the daisies, the buttercups, the milkweed, the thistles, and all the little flowers and grasses whose names I don’t know. Still, the clear view is nice for now, and all the roots are still there to start regrowing the minute he finishes. I wonder if the spider was fleeing from the tractor when she chose the Prius.