The Spider and The Bull

Today is a special day. It marks the fourth anniversary of our travels around the country. Our hope was that we would enjoy traveling in our home for at least three years and maybe five--even longer if we were in good health.

The glitches along the way have been few in number and minor in their impact and have been more than offset by the experiences of seeing many parts of this beautiful country and meeting many wonderful people.

Our blog was meant to be a type of journal of our travels for us to relive "after coming in off the road" and to stay in touch with friends and family.

When considering things to write about today, we decided to stay with a relatively common experience, because sometimes the most interesting and unusual topics are very close to home.

Such was the case with my walk around the Fort Chiswell RV Park (Max Meadows, VA) one morning. The previous evening had been marked by big, puffy clouds and the cattle were gathering near the fence line at the usual time in the evening.


The next morning was fairly typical. There was a heavy fog, but one that burned off all too quickly for any "Appalachian Fog" photos. A quick walk around the grounds in an attempt to catch any final glimpses of fog was unsuccessful.

Two other early risers monitored my walk as I neared their territory.





Neither of these residents greeted me with a song, but I could feel their stares as I passed their posts near the completion of my morning cnstitutional.

And it was while I was photographing these fellows that I noticed another subject for my early morning photo shoot.

Framed by the metal fence between the RV Park and the neighboring cattle farm was the work of a spider. It may have been a few days old, because it seemed to have deteriorated in places, but the presence of water droplets created an entirely new view of the web.







I think that the water droplets looked like gems on a necklace.

(If you double click on the left of the mouse, the effect of the droplets appearing to be gems is even more clear.)





As I walked along the fence line, I found more examples of other spiders' work.

















I came across two webs (the two below; the third web is a different view of the first of the two) that appeared very similar.



I don't know what was caught in these two webs, but the webs themselves looked pretty much intact.



The longer I stayed at a particular point along the fence, the more attention I received from cattle that had begun to gather in this particular grazing area.

All during the time I spent photographing the webs, I did not see any spiders.

However, some of the cattle were becoming more and more curious and moved toward my position along the fence.

When I took the photos on the left and below, I thought of the title "The Spider and The Bull." The more I thought about this phrase,
the more I thought this it sounded like the name of an English or Irish pub.

My cousin Mike and I had talked about opening an ice cream and burger shop selling Wilcoxon's huckleberry ice cream and Mike's buffalo burgers, but now the possibility of a pub had more appeal.

Bangers and mash, shepherd's pie, Guiness on tap... at The Spider and The Bull.