spiders and bugs and shrooms, oh my

I'm not certain I'll ever get used to south coastal Virginia seasons. We have long stretches of no rain, but threatening rain, but nope, still no rain, and just when we give up and water the garden after all, rain. For days and days and then muggy muggy muggy still in the 80s, and it's fall.

I'm from New England: I just want a dreary rainy day, a bright day, a chill breeze, a sweater and trees full of yellow, orange, red and purple right about.....now.

So, in the past week or so, there has been a lot of drizzle then sun then drizzle drizzle when there was supposed to be major storm. The local news is giddy about all the mushrooms and no, people, please do not eat those mushrooms in your yard, even if they do look like gourmet chanterelles or oyster shrooms. 

It's also a big spider season. Grandma says there are tons of tiny black spiders in her room. I am finding big orb weavers and other strange large spiders and - things on the deck, on the front of the house and in my gardens. A silverfish strode cockily across my desk this morning, too.

One day, a couple of weeks ago, we had a big yellow and black garden spider building a web on our deck. Toots misses her. I do, too. Then, a couple of days ago, I stumbled across a giant orb weaver a pace away from the other's web, building a gorgeous enormous structure. After I yelled, "Holy Crap!" to my friend over the phone, I checked it out pretty well, then later, it disappeared before I could get a picture. 

We still have at least remnants of both webs on our deck.  I love spiders and their handiwork, so I haven't removed them. They are big. Toots joined me on the deck briefly as she ran around the yard with her preschool class frog, Freddie, who is visiting this week. She looked up at the webs, and said very sadly, 

"Oohhh, where did our spiders go?"

She was quite forlorn. 

So was I.

But I wasn't when I saw a giant Giger art looking bug on my garage the other day. After some unsuccessful googling, a friend sent me a link to Wheel Bugs. Bingo. 

And today, I went out to do some gardening maintenance to discover where that giant orb weaver took up residence: right between my bean poles that I wanted to remove. She was very active and pretty ticked off that I watching her work. She ran at me, and Mom didn't raise a fool, I ran, too - away. 

So we've entered the season of creepy crawlies and mysterious mushrooms, and I may just grow to like it down here pretty soon because of this...but the leaves will never be like in Massachusetts.