The past few weeks the female Barn Spiders have been making themselves more visible by hanging out in more open areas of the farm. Yesterday was a bit more of a spider experience than I expected though. I was walking across the farm towards the studio to grab my roll of tar paper to fix my garden shed roof and happened to walk through the grass near one of the frost free hydrants. I was walking quickly and as I stepped through the grass I felt something stick to my leg. I made it a couple of steps past the hydrant and looked down at my leg to find this big ass spider clinging to me, looking up at me.

Let me just say that I freaked out a bit, jumped around and swatted the spider of my leg. As I was in the process of swatting it off my leg I realized what type of spider it is. In the middle of the driveway I stood for a moment looking around for the spider which I found curled up on its back. I grabbed the stick you see in the pick to lift it up. It grabbed the stick right away and I carried her back towards the hydrant area where we met and I set her on an exposed 3/4 inch galvanized pipe end.

Honestly, I rarely freak out with spiders like I did with this one and I think it was just the surprise of looking down and seeing this monster clinging to my leg, staring up at me, that hit me so hard. I realized mid swing what kind of spider she is, but those automatic reactions are nigh on impossible to stop. I love how thick her web is that you can see holding her to the pipe.

A week ago I was under the carport organizing the recyclables and I went to close the kitchen screen door and saw this big girl. She has a spot on the top corner of the screen claimed and has remained in the general area for a while now. This spider was fortunate enough to NOT meet me like the other one did, this was a more casual introduction. She didn't seem disturbed by my photos and only moved when I tried to stick a moth to the screen for her.

We are starting into the cool nights and lower temps now of Fall/Winter so I am curious as to where the spiders go for the winter. I am not finding much about the life cycle of the species in cursory searches. None the less I am very happy to have the spiders around the farm as they do a good job of eating bugs as judged by their full figures and large sizes.

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