Our New Eight Legged Friend

Ok, so maybe I am a little crazy. Would you let a spider the size of a nickle take up residence under your kitchen cabinet? A few days ago I would've probably said no too, but that was before our little eight legged friend decided to set up housekeeping. I discovered him (or her whatever the case may be) the other night as I started preparing dinner. There he was in all his..."spiderness." Now I'm not too crazy about spiders, I never have been. My youngest son Brandon came in the kitchen and immediately asked what I was looking at. I told him we had a new friend. Of course in typical ten year old fashion, he said, "Cool, can we keep him?" I told him "no we can't keep him but maybe we could watch him this evening as he went about building his web." So we did and I continued to cook dinner with our newly acquired spider friend just a few feet away toiling away at his web. It was all a bit weird but hey.
Now of course Brandon, being a typical ten year old leaves the kitchen only to return from outside with a dead fly. Now only a ten year old would know where to acquire a dead fly so quickly, I mean come on, would you know where to put your hands on a dead fly if someone asked? I wouldn't. Well, no sooner had I asked him what he had, he tossed the fly towards the web. Just like glue the web trapped the fly and the spider quickly sprung into action capturing the fly. It was like looking at the coolest stuff mother nature has to offer right here under our kitchen cabinet. After watching this awesome spectacle of nature unfold before our eyes, Brandon's first words were wooh Cooool! His next words were, dad where's your camera? I immediately replied, son I'm two steps ahead of you!

Here's what we came up with:

I love this shot, and I'm sure the spider loved the free meal.

We got this shot by turning the kitchen light out and shining a flash light not on the spider but on a piece of colored card board behind the spider.

This was taken with the lights out shining a flash light from the side on the spider. I gave Brandon the remote for the camera and told him to fire the shutter every time I thought I had the light just right.

It amazing, this spider has sat in the same position in the center of his web moving very little for the last two days. He's waiting to pounce on his next victim. I wish I had that kind of patience and determination. I'm not sure how long he'll stay but I'll give him another day or two to hang out. Why not?