Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Banana Spiders Remind Me Of Summer




We were reviewing some of our old pictures on the computer the other day because we are having a contest at work. The company has just finished renovating their customer hospitality suite and they realized that the walls seemed somewhat bare and bleak. Since a lot of their clients arrive from outside of the country without any idea of just how beautiful this area can be it was decided that it would be fun to ask the staff to submit their photos to decorate the walls. There is a prize of $100 for each of four pictures selected but it will be great just to have one of ours picked to be representative of our community to the world!

Anyway, spiders and summer, yeah, back to that. A couple of years ago we were touring around Atlantic Canada, doing the Bed and Breakfast thing for the first time. It was an absolutely perfect vacation with amazing sights, great accommodations and food and it was lots of fun. It was fantastic and just about the best time we have ever had on holiday. In fact, it was only bettered by the trip we took to the west coast with my father and my sister several years ago.

When we got home from the B&B trip one of the first things we did was check the vegetable garen to see how it made out while we were away. We were only gone five days but that can be a long time for a garden to go without watering. It turned out that everything survived just fine without us, including the pumpkins. It was while we were checking out the pumpkin patch that we first ran into the little bugger you see above.

That, dear readers, is the "Black and Yellow Garden Spider, Writing Spider, Banana Spider or Corn Spider" according to Wikipedia. The females, like the ones pictured here, can range from 19 to 28 mm in length and, in my opinion, are very beautiful. Harmless too, apparently. Her web is "a circular shape up to 2 feet in diameter, with a dense zigzag of silk, known as a stabilimentum, in the center". This is almost as distinctive as the spider, herself.

Now, whenever I see one of these in the yard or even one of these pictures I am transported back to the summer of '07, Wolfville, Yarmouth, Halifax and Mahone Bay. It's funny how memory works but for me the Banana Spider equals summer in the Maritimes.


6 comments:

Nakamuras on Saipan said...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!! :)I have a spider phobia...lol

Canadian Saver said...

Oh I love the colors! Good luck for your contest at work :-)

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

You may remember that we had a "Wolf Spider" a couple of weeks ago that really (!!) scared me and I wanted NOTHING to do with it. However, "black & yellow garden spiders" are also native to Virginia, and for some reason do not bother me at all...I guess because I was told from the time I was a kid that they were "okay" and to just leave them alone, and I did. My Mother always used to say, "if you wish to live & thrive, let a spider run alive..." :-))

**By the way many THANKS for your suggestions about being better prepared, you are so right!! When we lived in Alaska, I was always ready for winter, and I have really forgotten my lessons from that time in my life. THANK YOU again,I really do appreciate it!! Stay warm!!

its me, sam said...

Ah, summer... I must say the past few days feel like late march, early April than mid February.

Sisters of the Blog said...

Beautiful picture and amazing web.

I agree with its me, sam, as the past two days have been unbelievably warm in my neck of the woods, too.

megan

The Witch said...

It's warm here on the Witch's Island today, too. Beautuiful and sunny and +5 celcius. Hubby was even inspired to get Big Red out in the driveway and give it a wash. Spring is just 5 weeks away or maybe even less this year despite what the groundhogs said.