BTW, I need to tell a story that has nothing to do with the Jade Festival, except that it happened to me this morning.
My friend and volunteer in the main booth, Rose, came up to my place to spend the night in paradise Saturday night. In the morning, we went out to the Jeep to go down to the festival. The driver’s side door and the driver’s side back door were covered with a huge, silk-string spider web. We are not talking an ordinary spider web here, we are talking about something that looked like an alien spider about 6 ft. tall landed and tried to capture my Jeep, sucking out the good parts, and leaving the rest to become an empty hulk.
Rose and I are a tad freaked. At first, we hypothesized that kids had snuck in during the night, and sprayed the spider web on my Jeep. Nah, the dogs would have freaked out, and how would they get in? Then, we decided it must be the alien spider from hell. I had to brush some away in order to get in my door. It was quite thick, quite strong, very sticky, and a lot like silk. Amazing stuff, actually.
So we get in and start to drive down to the festival. We both feel really creepy, look at each other, then look in the back of the Jeep. I had left the windows down, and we were both convinced the back was occupied by our 6 ft. spider. We notice similar stuff on some of the plants as we head down, and decided that wherever this massive spider-web was, it was blowing all over Plaskett. 16 years. I have never seen this phenomena. Okay, when I get down to the Jade Festival, hopefully John Smiley, the bugologist who was present Saturday will be there, and I can ask him. He isn’t. Squeeky doesn’t know, and Avis swears it is probably a Wolf Spider. (I looked it up, and Wolf Spiders do not weave webs, but carrying their young in an orb on their abdomens.)
Exhausted though I am, I guess I have to at least try to find out what it is. If I do, I will let you know. Now, back to the rest of the Jade Festival.
Here is a link to a HUGE spider web in TX. The one I saw was big, but not this big. The phenomena is a rarity, and they think it is caused by “stretch” spiders working together. Texas Webs
I have seen it in times past, large clumps blowing down the canyon like floating globs of sticky web. Sometimes quite numerous. It can be explained but I have forgotten.
I have heard this phenomenon described as young spiders just after hatching launch themselves on their homemade parachutes (web) to be blown to a new area. They land and begin their life on that spot.
I don’t know if this is what you are seeing Kate but it sounds like it. It would be amazing to see an image.
In this area we have Oak Tree or what alot of people call Barn Spiders that can spin a web over 12ft long & high. We had a resident one living between our neighbors house & ours (10ft stretch) many years ago. The spider itself is black & yellow striped across the orb of its body. The spider itself can be with its legs the size of a womans palm. They are harmless to humans but love the huge moths that come out at night. I hope you only had a bloom of them because if its some other type of spider, it could be harmful. 🙂
BTW… we did drive down on Saturday, but 3/4 of a mile in both direction of the school were a mass of vehicles & no close parking. We didn’t want to leave Rockie & Trinity in the car that far away. We should have come very early Friday like you’d suggested. Next year. 🙂