I can’t remember the last time it rained here. Not a sad three drip drizzle, but real, all day, soaking rain. It was sometime in July, and we’ve had a total in the past thirty days of 3.57 inches in my area. August is usually dry and brown as we transition into the harvest season, and it’s definitely the driest month of summer, but right now everything is so dry the trees’ leaves are droopy and the deer are checking the birdbath for water every day.
Our morning glories petered out in drought for the first time since I moved here, so I’ve been watering extra when I can. Yesterday, while I filled the dogs’ yard-water bowl with the hose and sprayed the garden, a whole slew of excited spiders emerged from the eaves and edges of the house. Wolf spiders with egg sacs in their webs up near the flashing, daddy long legs on the siding, grass spiders by my feet, all peeking out at the giant they usually hide from out of life-threatened fear (wouldn’t you hide from a creature so big it could squash you under a single finger?).
OF COURSE I angled the spray so mist hit the siding and webs around them. Watching a daddy long legs scoot toward a droplet of water on the side of the house and hold it like a precious gem while it drank was a good reminder that we all share this place, and we all have a responsibility to take care of each other. All of those spiders do their jobs in the yard and outside, eating mosquitoes and bugs just as they should.
Later SK and I watched the doe and fawns drinking from the bird bath. Minerva protested.
The forecast isn’t great from a drought standpoint for the next ten days: it sounds like tomorrow we may get a storm, and if we do I hope there’s enough rain to prevent any fires, because a lightning strike right now would be a bad, bad deal.
It’s been beautiful here: low humidity, sunny, not too hot…and here I am hoping for an all-day-rain. Fall is weird, and I wonder how many days of spider watering it takes to become the Spider Queen?
I’m editing. This is a nonsensical break.
No Pithy Phrase 