Spun Gold

              

One of the most interesting parts of life is making discoveries. Some folks think you have to travel far from home, get advanced degrees, or look at worlds beneath a microscope to do what Columbus, Pasteur, Archimedes, or Einstein did.  However, I’ve learned that if you pay close attention to each moment in your day, you can go to bed most nights and give thanks for another amazing insight.

                Most of my aha moments are special only to me, a loved one, or friend who enjoys nature as much as I, but yesterday morning was wake up in Brigadoon special.  It took an alignment of humidity, temperature, sunlight at just the right angle, and me being in the right place at the right time to create this magic moment. 

                I would have to say most magic moments require at least being in the right place at the right time to qualify as magical, but Sunday morning’s fog and resulting dew were necessary parts of this particular memory making moment.

  I walk the pastures around our property often, and I’ve seen a spider web or two on those rambles, but with the dew and the light at the right angle, I realized we have multitudes of very busy spiders living in the fields from here to Ellis. There were enough spider webs stitching those fields together to drive an arachnophobe crazy. I suspect that is true of about any field, anywhere, but until yesterday I didn’t realize how many spiders call earth home.

What made it possible to spot these webs that normally blend into the environment was an early morning fog that beaded filaments of hundreds of thousands of spider webs in the blue stem, brome, switch and other prairie grasses growing in the neighborhood fields. 

When the rising sun hit these moisture-laden webs, they become spectacular works of art.  Seeing just one of these glittering diamonds would have been blessing enough, but thousands dotted each acre.

 Like jewels found in nature, these treasures came in a trove of shapes and sizes.  Some spiders outdid themselves with platter-sized webs while others spun efficient, golf ball-size tapestries.  Because each highlighted web glistened in golden light, I could see each artist’s individual style.  Each spider had his or her own trademark technique for assembling a bug trap. 

Had we not had that heavy fog, had my husband and I not left the house as the sun peaked high enough to backlight the grassy pastures, had I not been intent on seeing the grass in the morning light as we traveled that road, I’d have missed seeing spun gold. 

I’ve lived a long time, wandered many country miles, and never seen such a sight.  Perhaps this will be my one and only time to see acre after acre of glistening spider creations.  If that is the case, this was blessing enough to last.