Tennessee Arachnids

The old Airbnb farmhouse we stayed at in Gray Tennessee was home to a number of the below yellow garden spiders!  They're also know as - black and yellow garden spider, golden garden spider, writing spider, zigzag spider, zipper spider, black and yellow argiope, corn spider, Steeler spider, or McKinley spider.

You can see in the pics below why the name "zipper spider" came to being...

There was one next to the porch stairs and we started feeding it!  Yup, we'd search for bugs big enough to toss into it's web.  Bugs were hard to find with Japanese beetles were the easiest to locate, often hiding in the rose flowers.  The spider wouldn't react immediately when it's meal was tossed into its web, rather it would wait until the bug started to move then WHAM, it was on it where it would start wrapping the bug in webbing; rolling it with its legs as it was dispensing web from it's backside, very cool to watch.

Click this link here to see a short video I took, which isn't the best -

Orb Weaver wrapping it's meal

We saw several Praying Mantises too, which is always fun.

Interestingly, when we drove on our 15+ acres of land, that had yet to be hayed, grasshoppers were flying everywhere.  There were oodles of them, with the hood of the SUV covered.

Orb Weaver - UPDATE

We released this little lady back on August 31 in our flower bed of Cone flowers and Black-eyed Susan's. She wasn't too accommodating when we released her, as far as sitting still and posing for a few farewell pictures. She didn't waste any time crawling beneath the plants to get away.

It was only a couple days later that we discovered her, not too far from where we let her go, in a brandy new web she built just waiting for dinner to arrive. Here is a picture of her -

I spent this past Saturday in the yard planting some new perennials, splitting and transplanting some daylilies, etc. I've had this one Sedum plant that's been confined to a pot all summer long. It was planted along with a small Plumeria cutting. I should have separated the two in the spring but it didn't happen. So with the pending arrival of fall/winter I thought now would be a good time to get the two spit, the Sedum in the ground and the Plumeria in the house.

There are two reasons why this plan didn't occur; first, there was almost no dirt left in the pot when I removed the plants - it was all roots, root-bound. Splitting the two plants would have been difficult under these conditions but I was ready for the challenge. Secondly, and the main reason, I found this hanging amongst the two plants, as a result I am sacrificing the Plumeria plant to Mother Nature (we have two others) -

I believe this papery sack is housing over a thousand eggs that were laid by our Black and Yellow lady. This Sedum/Plumeria potted plant was in the area where we released her. Emotions are mixed here, on one hand we're proud pending parents, but on the other hand we're sadden because after laying the egg, the spider dies, which may also explain why we have not see her in quite some time now...plus we have our work cut out for us. How in the world are we going to come up with one thousand names, GRIKEY?!

The baby spiders hatch from their eggs in the fall, but they stay inside the sac through winter, so we'll be keeping a close eye come Spring to see just what emerges. Actually, I may now move this plant someplace closer to the house, where there is a better chance of the young sticking around our flower gardens versus venturing elsewhere.

Oh the anticipation, stay tuned...