As they came into our house and removed their shoes, our granddaughters were telling me that they had seen a big black spider on a giant spiderweb. At first I had forgotten about the abundant house decorations preparing for halloween and thought that they had discovered a spider web on our front porch. We have our tomato plants on the south side of the house, just beyond the porch rail and there certainly could have been a large spider out there. They were, of course, describing the decorations at a house down the street from our place.

There seems to be quite an infestation of spiders in preparation for Halloween. And it is only the first of October. Just a year ago, we were paying a lot of attention to this neighborhood. We had made an offer on this house and it had been accepted and we were waiting to close on the deal around the middle of the month. We had extended the lease on the house where we were living for a month to make time for the move. However, we were so focused on this specific house that I didn’t pay much attention to the decorations at other houses. Just after we moved into the house, on Halloween, we discovered how much our neighbors enjoyed that holiday. Halloween was on a Sunday and I made a quick trip to a big box store to pick up treats to hand out. Our grandchildren, who live on a farm, were excited to come over to our neighborhood for trick or treat as they didn’t have many places to go for treats. What a surprise it was for us to have crowds of children and families out in the street. Our neighborhood was filled with lights and decorations and people in what seemed like a giant block party. We’ll be better prepared this year, spurred both by the excitement of our grandchildren and by the decorations the neighbors are putting up.

Giant, fake spiderwebs, however, aren’t high on my list of preparations. First of all, I find spiders more fascinating than spooky. While we were traveling last week, a garden spider managed to string parts of a web across the space between the east side of our house and our fence. I walked through the pathway and ran into the web before I noticed it, bringing much of it down and leaving the spider dangling in the remains. No harm was caused to me and I suspect the spider was able to reconstruct at least part of the web after I carried my things past and closed the garden gate.

One of the houses down the street with a giant fake spiderweb has a set of cords running from the top of their flagpole to the ground. Frankly it reminds me more of the rigging on an old sailing vessel than a spider web. The lines have a bit of sag in them, but they are far from circular in pattern, like the webs the spiders make. And the giant spider on the web doesn’t look much like the spiders we have around here. Its legs are rather short in comparison with its head and body. Worse, for those interested in realism, the spider has its legs attached to the abdomen. Real spiders have a fused head and thorax, bearing the eyes, mouthparts and legs. It is called a cephalothorax. The abdomen has the organs that spin silk, reproductive openings and the breathing organs. The cephalothorax has a hard place called the carapace like the shell of a crab.

If they want to get really technical with their spider, they also need more eyes. The spiders in the garden usually have six or eight eyes. And the spiders in the garden are not very scary. They rarely bit humans. Bites are usually the result of the spider being threatened or unable to escape. Orb weavers do carry venom and their bite is comparable to a bee sting, but the spiders that raise welts and cause itching are usually tiny ones that we don’t ever notice. Black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders have venom that really packs a punch and can cause serious illness, but encounters with these spiders are fairly rare, especially if you are careful and observant and pay attention before crawling in places they might inhabit. A good headlamp or flashlight is handy for looking for spiders before entering crawl spaces or other places where you might discover such creatures. Most of the spiders in our gardens, however, are not aggressive and prefer to run and hide rather than attack.


Still, spiders and webs seem to be part of the decorating theme of several of our neighbors this October. As is true of most halloween decorations, they are designed to stir the imagination more than really frighten. Personally, I’ve never been frightened by a ghost. The ones we see are delightful children in costumes who are rewarded with candy for coming to our porch so we can see them. Even when they forget to thank us, their parents are usually close by to offer support and provide safety so no truly frightening things occur. The black cats in our neighborhood are all quite friendly and don’t seem to bring bad luck to anyone. Giant inflatable dragons and dinosaurs don’t bear any resemblance to living creatures that one might encounter. Creatures that do frighten me, such as cougars and grizzly bears, are not represented in the Halloween decorations in our part of town. Even scorpions, which are related to spiders and are a bit more frightening, are not featured in the decorations.

October decorations around here are fun and based on fantasy and imagination. They are designed to entertain rather than frighten. So if my neighbors want to use clothesline to create giant spider webs, I have no objection. They are not interested in details of arachnology that I have obtained by reading Wikipedia.

It is all in good fun and it is a reminder that autumn is coming. Halloween may be a month away, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying our neighbors all month long.