I'll spare people the pictures that go with this story.
First, I am arachnophobic. Spiders give me the creeps. That being said, I made three new, very unexpected friends last summer.
I was watering my amaryllis in my greenhouse. They are planted in pots with automatic watering trays. Out of the spout of the pot popped this enormous, gray, ugly spider. I freaked out and tried to rinse it away, but it refused to leave. I gave up and walked away.
The next time I watered, the same thing happened. No matter how many times I tried to persuade it to move from my water spout, it stubbornly refused to leave. It would rather get wet than give up it's home. Over weeks, I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to leave, and it built a huge, funnel shaped web in the spout. I started watering the plant from the top to avoid getting the spider wet.
The spider became accustomed to me too, and stopped running and hiding when I came out to water. One morning, the sunlight hit her just right sitting in her web, and I could see that not only had she grown to the size of my thumb, but she was no longer a drab gray, but a rust red-brown with a single yellow stripe down either side of her body. Quite beautiful, actually. I hurriedly researched it, and found out that she was a Funnel Weaver, otherwise known as a common Pennsylvania Grass Spider. Quite harmless, usually shy, so her acceptance of me what pretty strange. I named her Charlotte, and built her a cabin out of popsicle sticks in the hopes she would leave my pot alone and move in to that. No such luck.
So Charlotte and I worked out an understanding and truce. Then one day, I was watering some small jade starts on the floor of the greenhouse: the tiny pots were still in the compartmentalized box they came in for convenience. And out popped another ugly gray spider. I jumped, of course. Ran inside, got a grabber, and carefully removed each little pot from the box. The poor little spider actually cowered inside the box. I gave it to her, and built her a cabin too. She wouldn't touch the cabin, so I got a tiny birdhouse from the dollar store and set it in the box with a grabber. She took to it immediately.
Soon enough, the second spider turned red as well. I named her Lucy (My mom's idea, after Lucille Ball for her red hair). Charlotte and Lucy always got along. They had separate sides of the greenhouse, and never bothered each other. They did an excellent job of controlling the bug population in the greenhouse, and I never had to deal with another spider after that. I called them my House Keepers.
I would greet them twice a day when I checked on my plants, and they came to know the sound of my voice. They would come out when I called their names. Eventually, when fall was coming and their food source became scarce, I began feeding them rose slugs that were eating my rose bushes alive (couldn't get rid of those stupid things no matter what I did). The ladies began to take position and wait patiently for me to drop them a meal.
Mid way through the summer, I noticed another funnel on my front porch, and sure enough, there was another Funnel Weaver in it. Smaller than the girls, so I figured he must be male, and they must be female. I named him Wilbur. He was more shy, but eventually he came to trust me as well.
I found them fascinating, and loved to observe them. I found that each of them had a different personality, and were very intelligent. Charlotte was the most outgoing. She and I had the best relationship. I'll never forget accidentally splashing her, and seeing her skitter about like a wet cat before diving back into her funnel, lol. She was mad at me for days after that. She always took her time biting her prey, as if talking to it first. I always wondered what she said to it.
Lucy was more reserved, but more ferocious when it came to food. She always pounced immediately. As did Wilbur. Once in a while, Lucy would venture up the web attached to the makeshift half-door I made for the greenhouse to keep cats out. She would simply sit there and watch me water plants, never moving or threatening to lunge.
The ladies both had boyfriends in the greenhouse too. Unexpected, not necessarily pleasant surprises.
Unfortunately, Funnel Weavers do not survive winter. I knew the time was coming when they would stay hidden for days at a time, and wouldn't even come out to greet me. After the first major frost, when I knew they were gone, I dug the plant out of Charlotte's pot, and used a grabber to place all of their nests into separate boxes. I put those boxes out back in my stepfather's firewood pile, under cover of a roof, and insulated them with leaves, bark, and cut grass. I wanted to give any potential offspring of my friends the best possible start I could. I'm hoping to see happy red-brown spiders out there this year.
These three little spiders completely changed my attitude about spiders. I look at them much differently after meeting these amazing creatures. So keep an open mind. You never know where's you'll meet a new friend.
(Sorry for the extra long story. I've been dying to tell someone about them. Everyone around here thinks I'm crazy.)
