Here is a photo of a spider weaving her web:
I took it yesterday morning on the way to work. I caught her in the act, carefully dancing along the spokes of her web, pulling and touching her spinnerets to the proper places. I wonder if she needs all eight legs to do it or if six would suffice. It looked complicated, but the motions and rhythm reminded me a bit of knitting.
I like how spiders keep house; how they cut out parts of their web stuck with garbage and rebuild it. I read that webs lose stickiness after a day, so the spiders eat their web and spin a new one every day. I recently had to knock down a web in my garden so I could pass through some trees, but I took it down carefully, one guy line at a time, leaving the top two intact, and watched the spider gather all the silk up in her legs, climb up to the top, and eat the web, shoving the minute tangle of silk into her mouth with her front legs. So thrifty! So efficient!
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