Most mornings when we go outside we're immediately covered by cobwebs strung from doorframe to doorframe. Yes, August seems to be spider month in the Carolina Piedmont and our farmhouse IS festooned with miles and miles of spider silk. Come August we're forever encountering one spider after another and stumbling into webs, but we still think everyone should share our good fortune in being surrounded by such fascinating eight-legged creatures.
#Arachnophilia open with not able windows#
Those crevices where siding meets molding provide countless places in which spiders hide by day and from which they spin innumerable webs by night-and NOTHING makes those spider webs more obvious than a background of good ol' white vinyl siding.Īs you might guess, we've just described the situation here at Hilton Pond Center where our white-clad farmhouse is paradise for vast numbers of spiders of all shapes and sizes-spiders that grace our windows and doorways and eaves and attic with an equally diverse assortment of cobwebs and other silken structures (above left). And if your dwelling DOES happen to be an old white farmhouse in the country, by all means be sure the light exterior is NOT the result of easily dirtied white vinyl siding with its inherent cracks and crannies. If its exterior IS light-colored, make sure it ISN'T white. If you DO dwell in an old house, be sure it DOESN'T have a light-colored exterior. But if you DO live in the country, DON'T occupy a vintage farmhouse. If you THINK you are an arachnophobe-one who has a morbid fear of spiders-do NOT try to live out in the countryside. Meanwhile, here at Hilton Pond I'll try to get back to investigating and sharing the world of nature-something Jackie Hilton encouraged as early as my pre-teen years. Alas, her short-term memory is waning but her family and friends hope she will continue to improve. Following daily 12-hour stints at various health centers in the Carolinas I did manage to return home some evenings in time to trap a few hummingbirds and, more important, can report Jackie is now talking cheerfully and has re-acquired some mobility. Jackie's five children spent extended amounts of time at her bedside, which-in my own particular case-meant there was little time this month for field research, bird banding, photography, or essay-writing.
After three craniotomies and more than a month of hospitalization and rehabilitation she has bounced back further than anyone could have expected-thanks to modern medicine, expert care, moral support, resilient DNA, and her sometimes cantankerous refusal to give up. In late July the 87-year-old family matriarch, Eleanor Jacqueline Byars Hilton, took a nasty fall at home, clunked her head, and developed a massive subdural hematoma that robbed her of speech and made her semi-comatose.
#Arachnophilia open with not able series#
Note from Bill Hilton Jr.: I regret it has been a while since the last posting of "This Week at Hilton Pond "-my first extended hiatus in more than ten years of this on-going series of nature photo essays.
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