I was up on top of the porch roof painting the second story of our house while my next door neighbor's grandchildren were running out in the road in front of cars multiple times chasing tennis balls before a nice walking lady walked one of them across the street and marched her up to her mother who was visiting inside the house when I saw this amazing spider. I asked my daughter to run and get my camera, as I wasn't about to miss another photo opportunity which I will may never have again and then some man would try to charge me $120 to use his picture. (True. Story coming soon.) That is my gloved finger in the picture, so you can see she was a decently-sized spider (sorry, Kyla.)
As usual, I did a little research, because teachers should also be learners themselves. Then we know what it is like to be a student, and we have more information to share with our students as we are learning ourselves. I discovered that this is a marbled orb spider. They spin orb-shaped webs, aren't poisonous (see Kyla, it is okay!), and run away and hide from ladies up on top of roofs who are painting and watching crazy children run out in the street in front of cars.
