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About four or five years ago, I suddenly began seeing a new spider appearing around our yard. The spider itself was small, less than a half inch long, but the webs were large, geometrically precise, and marvelous. Marvelous, that is, unless you happen to walk through one or catch a long anchor line in your hair as you wandered around, minding your own business. The webs, perfect examples of an orb weaver’s artistry, are beautiful, decorated with little tufts of cotton-like balls at intervals. But the spiders themselves are also gorgeous, like little white, red, orange, or yellow jewels, speckled with black dots, adorned with little spikes that have give them the common name of “crab spider.”  

They are not, however, true crab spiders, those little yellow and white denizens of my rose bushes and wildflowers. These are Spinybacked Orbweavers, Gasteracantha cancriformis, a species that seems to have suddenly appeared all over the island within the last decade, mostly in the last three or four years. Other common names, according to bugguide.net, include: Crab Spider, Spiny Orbweaver Spider, Crab-like Orbweaver Spider, Crab-like Spiny Orbweaver Spider, Jewel Spider, Spiny-bellied Orbweaver, Jewel Box Spider, Smiley Face Spider, and Crablike Spiny Orbweaver. Quite a list for a half-inch spider.  

The Spinybacked Orbweaver is not just any spider, however. In 1999, she (most of the ones you see are female) even had her very own 33 cent U.S. postage stamp as part of an insect and spider stamp series, sharing the limelight with my other favorite arachnid, the Jumping Spider, and one of my least favorites (although, admittedly, rather well-dressed in her patent leather coat), the Black Widow.

I love old walls, especially those that were used as signage for businesses or to advertise products. There aren’t a lot of them left. Old buildings are torn down, or they are covered over by paint or new siding, or their colorful signs are hidden by newer structures. Periodically, however, those newer structures come down, revealing the art work that has been hidden for decades.  

A few weeks ago, I came across one of those walls next to a vacant lot surrounded by a chain link fence. Because I had to shoot my pictures through the fence, I could not find a location where I could capture the entire wall, resulting in the two overlapping photographs in this posting. The advertisement that spread across almost the entire structure was for “Triple X Ginger Ale, The Aristocrat of.…”  At that point the letters become difficult to read, leaving the product’s comparative aristocracy up in the air. At some point the wall was also used to advertise The Tremont, a hotel that burned down in 1865 (while occupied by Confederate troops), was rebuilt in 1872, and then razed in 1928. In 1985, the old hotel was recreated in a new location inside an 1879 warehouse that survived the 1900 Storm.  

There is also a ghostly remnant of what looks to me as “meat market” under the advertisement for The Tremont. The paint is so worn, however, that it is difficult to be sure. Which is one of the pleasures of old walls. There is probably an answer out there somewhere, but one has to go and look for it.

UPDATE, Oct. 18, 2008: When I went by this site today I found that the entire wall has been painted over. 

The temperature is still hovering in the 90s and it’s October and that’s too hot for October. Nature, however, seems to be ignoring the heat and proceeding with its settled schedule of activity. We still have hummingbirds in the yard, but I’m willing to bet that they will be gone within the next two weeks, just as they have disappeared in mid-October for the ten years I’ve been collecting yard data on their comings and goings. A new batch of White-winged Doves have appeared from somewhere to the north. I can tell they are new because they are not familiar with my feeding schedule. Unlike their summer cousins, they aren’t perching in our oak tree every morning at 7:00 waiting for me to come out and fill the feeder. They find the food, but mostly because they just happen to be in the territory and come down to check it out.  

Two years ago, my son sent me a couple of American beautyberry bushes from a wildflower farm in Missouri. I set them out in the back yard, one in the oak’s shade and the other with some afternoon sun. Last year they set a few berries, but this year they are both performing on cue. The literature says that mockingbirds love the berries, but so far nothing seems to have touched them, including the mocker that stations itself on the neighbor’s chimney and serenades us every morning.

I badly timed my arrival at work this morning. It was barely sprinkling at home, but by the time I had driven the two miles to work, it was raining water balloons. I had left my umbrella at home and the 100 yard dash to the building’s back door was out of the question. So I turned off the motor and sat there, knowing that morning storms are usually short lived.  

The rain was coming down so hard that everything outside was blurred. The employee parking lot is enclosed by a chain link fence that provides trellis support for coral and jasmine vines but it was impossible to differentiate between them through the windshield. The more I looked at the fence, the more convinced I became that I should take a photograph. So I did.