Spiders arrived this year.
In the past, I spotted an occasional spider, usually a small one marching solo. In the last growing season, though, I saw spiders everywhere – bigger and more varied, catching flies, traversing silk lines, waiting in the corners of webs stretched across waving grass and in the corners of windows. There were even groups of spiders lined up along the stems of plants in the greenhouse, feasting on bugs. One spider constructed a massive web over the front door, another spun egg sacs behind the pressure tank in the pumphouse.
While some contemporary folks fear spiders and screechingly squash them at every opportunity, spiders claim a robust historical presence in human cultures, like Anansi the spider of folklore legend, or Arachne of Greek mythology. Spiders abound in literature: Tolkien’s Shelob, E.B. White’s Charlotte, and more recently in Tommy Orange’s There, There. Spiders inhabit everyday language, from the Eensy Weensy Spider song, Spider Woman, and Little Miss Muffet, to the “web of life.”
Spiders appear in ancient human art and iconography from earliest oral traditions through more recent visual artifacts and cultural references. Our human ancestors demonstrated an abiding fascination with all things arachnid. Spider images, stories, and legends speak of power, connection, and interrelationship, all in reference to a largely solitary species, many of whom sit watch on a web. Humans lived with spiders, observed their habits, and commemorated their unique behaviors in song, legend, and art.
Mice also arrived last year, another creature with a history of co-habiting with humans. While I didn’t welcome the mice with the same excitement as the spiders, the appearance of mice did represent a sort of pleasant normalcy. When I purchased the Patch, there were no signs of mice, a desperate testament to a place entirely devoid of life. While I now sigh with dismay when I find a hole chewed in a bag of pig feed, or a mouse nest adorned with chicken feathers tucked inside the loops of stored hoses, I know a farmstead web is forming. There is enough scattered grain for mice to eat, and enough mice for Henry the cat to catch and munch.
Spiders and mice – species typically trapped,
sprayed, and ruthlessly eradicated in contemporary urban living – are also two harbingers of abundant life. Spiders and mice are bridges among predators and prey, contributory parts of the whole. They do the essential labor of feeding and being fed, living and dying, making messes and cleaning up.
Here at the Patch, a host of creatures spend their time, some more glamorous than others. Spiders and mice are among the more recent residents with whom I share space, and I am grateful for them all.
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