How is it possible that I have spent perhaps half of the last two or three days fascinated by watching Mr and Mrs Carlotta have sex? I have never been a voyeur, but it is absolutely riveting to me, seeing how often these two go at it (quite a bit, actually) and I find myself anthropomorphizing their body language. For most of the time Carlotta has been occupying her special parking spot right next to my deck door, she seemed very calm. She used to jerk in surprise when I'd open and close the door, but she is used to it now. Unless I slam the door, she knows I'm just letting the dogs run. And she is as calm as can be when I stand a foot away from the outer bands of her web, watching her. Neither does she mind when I press my cell phone against the window, six inches away from her many eyes, to take pictures of her. Mr Carlotta has been just as mellow, just hanging around in the web, waiting for the day he was needed. If he had had a tiny little beer and television, he would have been in heaven. But as of yesterday, it's go time, and he is putting a lot of effort into performing his marital duties. They go at it for several minutes, until she decides she is either satisfied or tired of him (I really can't tell), and she spasms and grabs him with the third set of legs (the short ones), and sets him aside. He marches off an inch north of her in the net, as perky and enthusiastic as he can be while she returns to motionlessness. They seem to be doing this all day long. I can't tell whether they take the nights off. One of my friends asked whether she would eat him when she was done with him, like a black widow spider. I have no idea what his eventual fate will be. I do know that once the babies are ready, it's not going to be a cute, little, sticky, white egg sack like the one Templeton moved with his mouth in Charlotte's Web. It's going to be one or more giant brown balloons like the four I found by the chimney earlier this spring, leftovers from last year's gate guard who scared the pants off of me every time I went to take out the trash. I expect to find them in the cat palm that forms the base of her web. I want to bring that plant inside this winter, but I am NOT bringing in all the baby Carlottas with it.
I refilled my bird and squirrel feeders this week, and the squirrels are acting like this is the only food source in the whole county. One pudgy tree rat keeps eating even after I've opened the door and the little red-headed dog is on his way out. It's not until the dog is at the edge of the deck that he jumps away to the tree. I hate to say it, but one of these days, boy dog is going to catch him. There's not much I can do about it, if he doesn't have the sense to learn the sound of the deadbolt sliding open, like all the other squirrels did, and run away to save his own life.
Since I stopped letting the cats outside, while the Park is too hot and mosquito-laden for me to spend time out there with them, we have experienced quite a resurgence of lizards. They're everywhere. Yesterday I moved my pot of succulents that was drowning and put it under the umbrella. I found the tiniest little guy on it, hanging off of a waterlogged stalk of portulaca. Nose to tail, he was barely over two inches long, and very patient while I waited for my phone camera to focus on him properly. As many spiders, lizards, and birds as I have around here, you would think I would have a reduction in the amount of bugs. Oh, wow, what if the overwhelming swarms of bugs that are out there ARE the reduced numbers? Go ahead, Carlottas. Make more spiders. I need your help with pest control.
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