araneus didemathus

Ah...September in the Pacific Northwest...the heat cools of from the blistering low 70's where it spent most of the summer and the hated glowing orb in the sky gives way to a pleasing variety of shades of grey.

But it's not all fun and games.  Because September is also the time of year when our native spider population gets OUT OF CONTROL!!!!



Meet the Cross-Spider.  I know...spiders do a good thing, keeping other bug populations under control  They also freak me right the *#@# out, and are one of the primary reasons that I have had a hard time getting yard work under control. 

Tarantulas really don't bother me...what freaks me out the most are spiders like our friend here...big enough to notice, but small enough that if you eat a web on the way to your truck in the morning, you won't find the spider for at least 5 minutes, when you finally feel it tickleing it's way up you arm. Invariably by this time, you are also doing 55mph by this point, and noticing the spider crawling up your arm could cause you to squeal like a girl and swerve back and forth across the yellow line while you try to find a place where the shoulder is wide enough to pull over and jump out of the truck into oncoming traffic, trying to shake the spider off.

Hypothetically speaking of course.