Up close and personal ...

Mother Nature kicked that humidity up a notch or two today because the fog took its good ol’ time getting out of town. It lingered over the spacious fields at Council Point Park long after I arrived. In fact, when the low clouds finally parted, and that tardy sun dared to peek out, it was just a pale imitation of itself. I guess Mr. Sun is well aware that it is playing second fiddle to that Super Moon this weekend, so it stepped back out of the spotlight it’s been in all this week.

Once the sun arrived, however, that wishy-washy orb cast its glow on some of Mother Nature’s finest artwork, for example, a gorgeous garnet-colored leaf that had fluttered from a tree and now lay face-down on the sidewalk. It was a perfect specimen, its beauty as yet unmarred by feet … human or otherwise.

A group of Queen Anne’s Lace looked pretty enough to gather and tie with a ribbon for a bouquet, even though it is a common weed.

And, even before I set out on my walk, I discovered an intricate spider web in my front garden, its delicate beauty enhanced by tiny dewdrops. The web was as big as a dinner plate, woven with silk and it almost looked like a dainty doily that stretched from the Japanese Maple to the living room window ledge. You really had to wonder how that lacy-looking web did not collapse under the weight of all those pendulous droplets clinging to each silky thread.

Though I loathe those eight-legged critters, their elaborate webs are worth taking a second look, if just to admire them for their durability and beauty. While I certainly don’t enjoy accidently walking into a web that has been spun overnight, today at the Park I found myself face to face with a big spider, seemingly suspended in mid-air, but actually just hanging out in his own domain, a large web which stretched between two tall bushes near the baseball field. In the background, geese were resting after grazing before taking flight once again. I inched closer to the web and examined it, getting up close and personal with this large garden spider. It was an unusual move for me, who generally will avoid spiders, and my action reminded me of a trip to the Smithsonian years ago. One of the museums in the massive complex featured a tarantula in a glassed-in case. Given my fear of spiders, even back in ‘77, I felt brave because I could tap on the glass all I wanted, knowing it couldn’t “get me”. All that hairy-looking arachnid did was stalk angrily around its living quarters with each rap of my knuckles on the glass wall. Brave girl indeed!

On today’s early news, squeezed in between the preview of the Pope’s busy agenda in New York City and John Boehner’s sudden resignation, I heard about the Delta flight from Baltimore to Atlanta where a tarantula was loose in the plane’s cargo area. Thank goodness another plane was handy to whisk the passengers away from this unwelcome critter. It’s not like you could run out the door of an airplane flying 45,000 feet up in the air. Gulp.

Mother Nature sure outdoes herself sometimes … right down to the super-sized moon and lunar eclipse this Sunday night. That’s a winning “twofer” right in your own backyard, just look to the Heavens.

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/