Circle of Life

I got to see a spider and wasp fight to the death today. Not like in some sort of staged event either. Jerry had more people than he needed again, so I was standing around at the bottom of the wall when I saw the spider, and it was not messing around. It was almost four inches in diameter, and about two inches tall, with short gray hair. It had very thin legs were and a relatively small torso, but it moved lighting fast. It was exciting enough to see such a big spider, but then the wasp flew down. I use the term wasp loosely, because this creature was a lot bigger than wasps normally are, and it seemed a lot more aggressive. Its colors weren't as bright, and it had a sort of very thin hair on its butt, making it look more like a large long bumblebee, but I think its actions classify it as a wasp.

One of the other guys went over, and crouched down near the animals, and I followed suit. They wasp was circling the spider, and the spider seemed to know it was under attack because it kept circling to face the wasp. I don't think the spider ever really had a chance. The wasp can fly and the spider can't. Hickory Dickory Dock. The wasp got tired of circling, and swept down on the spider. It was very quick, and didn't look to violent, but I'm pretty sure the wasp stung the spider, because the wasp just flew back and waited. The spider continued to circle, and it seemed active in defense, but soon its torso began to slowly lower to the ground, and its legs began to straighten. The wasp landed and began walking around impatiently. Then it walked over and began to drag the spider away. The spider was clearly dead or incapacitated, but the wasp didn't fly away with it. It just kept dragging the spider along, even though the spider was the bigger of the two. The wasp dragged the spider under the panels at the base of the wall, on its way back home. Later I saw the wasp dragging the spider up the vertical wall, with no real trouble. I don't know how many appendages it had, but it must have been quite a few to just hold the spider with a couple, and mosey on up a vertical wall with the others.

Circle of Life.

Other than that the day was mostly uninteresting. Not enough work, and boring in the morning. Then in the afternoon I bolted the edge of the new fiberglass climbing wall to the old concrete wall. I had some delicious peach smoothie with lunch. I've always been against the use of ice in smoothies, but I can't argue with results. This had ice in it and was one of the top two best things I've ever drank. There were campers today, so no drinking tonight.