Beginner Gardening: Let's see your yard critters, 1 by ceejaytown

ceejaytown wrote:
BTW, that is the female, and she does get quite big, doesn't she, Andy?
I told this on another thread some time ago, but just to let you know how wacko we are:
The Yellow & Black Argiope that resided in her web next to some windows (which supplied light to attract insects to her web) in a corner of our deck had grown from a small spider to a very large spider. We named her Charlotte, of course. As the days grew cooler in the fall, and there were less insects, I would find insects and throw them in to her web. In great health, she responded by making two egg sacs.
DD married in October, with a garden reception at our home. (When we were preparing for the reception, the window cleaner was warned not to disturb Charlotte. He replied that it was a good thing we warned him because Charlotte would have been very disturbed, if he had his way - a bivbiv kind of guy) Anyway, at the reception we saw the bridesmaids taking their friends around the corner of the deck to show them our pet spider - the insinuation being that we were, indeed, wacko. Alas, there was a frost that night and Charlotte lay dead on the deck the next morning. But due to her progeny, we had little Charlottes all over the yard the next year.

Here is a picture of an egg sac.