I deliberated at some length yesterday about interfering with a spider focused on building a web stretched low across the driveway. Within hours her labor would be for naught when the first car drove through. Her life likely also would be for naught. Should I break the shining support threads of her web, or mind my own business?

Little spiders were in the mushrooms and grasses with webs like tufts of silver hair from a brush. Orb-weavers to be found higher in the trees. There have been more spiders spinning webs this week than I’ve seen all year. The light at rising sun does not illuminate them all at once. The webs fade visible-invisible depending on where the sun is filtering through the branches of the oaks. A trinity of webs was spectacularly beautiful: one perfect, one neatly repaired, and one a deranged mess. The webs fanned out, pale silk banners, from branch to branch.

Unfortunately, I busted through many webs this week—not intentionally—but probably because there were more of them to run into. Also, I can’t see 75 percent of them at any given time until it’s too late. Strands of web dangle from my elbows and earlobes. They cling to my neck in reproach. (Though in breaking through one web, I did catch on my chest an interesting flying insect that had been trapped for Arachne's plate-lunch special. It had to be rescued again later from a bathtub of hot water. It survived both ordeals.)

Today, most of the webs were dangling or gone. Maybe blue jays flew through some. The silk-depleted spinners must have had little energy for repair.

So, back to the driveway spider. Of course I broke her web. My one deliberate destruction. I felt bad. Her taut main line hanging loose and tension-less. She was likely one unhappy cowgirl before getting going again. Better pissed off, though, than dead.