Death (and resurrection) on the front porch

This is another one you don’t want to read if you’re squeamish.

I am sitting on the porch swing, drinking a cup of tea and eating a bowl of cereal with blueberries, just enough to rev me up for a bike ride. Short today, 15 miles. Every long ride feels like the maximum I can do but they are getting longer. Last Saturday it was 36. Tomorrow is supposed to be at least 40. The forecast is for possible thundershowers Saturday and Sunday. Monday looks fine, high of 77. Could I persuade Vic to go with me on a long ride on Monday instead of the weekend?

I am thinking of this and savoring the blueberries when I see movement on the floor under the wooden bench a few feet away. What looks like a dead leaf is moving. I look closer and see that the leaf is attached to a spider thread and a spider is pulling on the thread, causing the leaf to move.

I am not opposed to spiders. I clear away the cobwebs in the house now and then but I appreciate the place of spiders in the ecosystem, even the ecosystem of this house. They keep down the population of flying and crawling insects. The previous owner of this house told us at the closing that the house belonged to the woods. This is true. The woods and all its creatures claim it. We try to carve out our living space but sometimes it seems easier to let the woods take over. It has taken over most of what used to be a lawn. Several days ago I gave up trying to feed hummingbirds because the raccoons were emptying the juice every night. We’d take the feeders in sometimes but usually we’d forget. Lots of sugar has gone into those young raccoons this summer. The basement, well, we won’t talk about the basement and centipedes.

A few minutes pass and I glance at the spider operation again. The “leaf” has moved. It is no longer on the floor but suspended halfway between the bench seat and the floor. And it is not a leaf. It looks like a miniature carcass of some kind, hung upside down like they hang beef in a meat locker. It is . . . a tiny tree frog. Pale, transparent, dead.

As I watch, horrified and fascinated, the spider continues its work. Hoists. Pauses now and then to dip into the frog’s left leg and, I suppose, suck. A great treasure. A bit much for the spider but what do you do when a bonanza comes your way?

Somehow I hope the frog was already dead when the spider found it. Somehow I suspect it wasn’t.

The process is yucky. Sad. And in its way, beautiful. The spider has cast a tent of threads around its prey. The sun glints on the thread.

What will I do when Hazel arrives in a few hours? At 12 months, she is learning to walk. The porch is prime practice area for her. She also has a keen eye for tiny objects and floor dirt. She will see the dead centipedes on the floor. She will discover the frog hanging under the bench and see it dance, as it is doing now because the spider is tugging again, trying to wind it up in a package and failing, because it is too heavy.

I will leave the operation in place. Hazel will begin to learn about death, right here on Grandma’s front porch. . . .

Wait! Wait! I have posted this but I must change the ending. The spider tugs once too often and the frog escapes! and hops away. Not dead. I open the door and guide it outside. No more spiders for this frog today.