Last week, on Review This! I wrote about the Shawan Downs Legacy Chase annual benefit steeplechase in Maryland. I love going to watch the horses race around the course, jumping over a variety of fences. It is an amazing, good time.
I made it a point to go again this year. The weather Saturday was perfect. Following days of cold and rain, Saturday was a sunny, clear-skied day in the 70's.
Moving from one spot, to the next, finally settling on the deserted back fence. I sat in the long grass along the very old fence. Between races I admire the lichen on some of the ancient wooden rails. Then I realized, despite my best efforts to find privacy, I was not alone.
Dancing spiders |
At first I nearly squealed. I'm not extremely afraid of spiders, but I do hate walking into webs when I hike and I'm afraid of the ones that jump. Initially, I thought these would jump. They looked aggressive. I thought they would move up and down, up and down, side to side, then jump on me. But they never jumped.
As I watched, mesmerized, I began to notice the webs spitting out of the spider's caboose. I could see it with my naked eye, spurt, shooting off into the wind, iridescent in the sun. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Look closely, see the web? |
But I remained focused on the spiders. And their dances. Amazed at how relatively thick and how long the webs were. String after string, like invisible kites being guided by the spider's hiney. Not forming a cobweb, but streamers of spider string blowing to the sky.
The spiders had begun to look less ominous. In fact, I began to think of one of my very favorite books of all time. Charlotte's Web. What a great story. And something was scratching away at the back of my brain. I knew I had read a fun review about Charlotte's Web. Now just who wrote that thing, I asked myself over and over.
Charlotte's Web |
And that was how I spent my Saturday at Shawan Downs, watching horses fly and spiders dance.
Written by Dawn Rae
Images of spiders by Dawn Rae
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