Charlotte’s Web

It is nearly the middle of February (northern hemisphere friends, think August) and the days are getting shorter. A month ago the sun was nearly up when I left the house at 6am to catch the ferry. Yesterday I had to leave the porch light on to find my way out of the house and up to the street light on Grantham Crescent. It starts to make it harder and harder to get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 5…..

I am sure you all remember the beautiful story, “Charlotte’s Web”. Charlotte the spider cleverly included words in her webs, usually in support of her friend Wilbur. One morning the people in the book woke up and discovered that Charlotte had spun a web that said, “Some Pig”. I never doubted that she knew how to spell. What I could not believe was that she did it in just one night.

Well, she did. Since moving to Dangar Island, I have been forced to become up close and personal with all kinds of spiders. Some big, like the huntsman in the bathroom and some beautiful like the one in the succulent planted in the bin.

This morning I couldn’t face getting up when the alarm rang, and I let myself sleep for an extra hour. So it was daylight when I went to the front door to let myself out of the house.

And there was an amazing spider and web stretched across the top of the stairs from the deck down to the grass.

Isn’t it fortunate that there is another way out and up to the road?!

Later in the day while I was at work, Alec snapped a few photos of a pelican using our jetty as a runway to practice taking off and landing. But he was really just drying off his plumage.

This past weekend we made great progress clearing the leaves and tree bark from the upper part of the lot. The area pays for tidying, and the fire danger is reduced. Alec has his work cut out for him either chopping the sticks up for kindling, or tying them in bundles to be taken away with the rubbish.

The other item of interest over the weekend had to do with seagull behaviour. Usually they just kind of hang around outside, looking for an opportunity to steal things that have been killed or discarded by someone else. Both Saturday and Sunday we watched them scour the outer sandbar during low tide, walking around and looking down, then grabbing something obviously delicious and gulping it down! It was actually a treat to watch them actively working for their meal.

It is Thursday night. Time to pick up our weekly order from the Harvest Hub and then treat ourselves to dinner “out” at the Bowling Club.

Life is good.