Webs in the Mist

ProfessorRoush was surely not planning on this topic for a blog as he woke and schemed the day ahead, but opportunities arise and their urgency cannot, sometimes, be denied.  I woke early, more so to enjoy the predicted cool morning and was not disappointed.  So long, we've waited for the onset of cooler morning and the feel of fall and here it was, at last manifest and perfect, 61ºF as I rose.   Bella and I woke and stumbled out to a paradise dampened by recent ample rains and more.

I was caught and mesmerized by the industriousness represented in the spider's web above, this dew-bejeweled engineering marvel stretched between the stiff dead stems.  The web is tiny, no bigger than my hand, but yet perfectly designed to catch an unwary small insect.   Not so this nearby web pictured at left, a chaos of construction, haphazard strands of spider goo placed at random angles and spacings.   What meaning, I wonder, in the diversity?   Is one spider so more industrious, more meticulous in its intent and implementation, the other a mere slob, unconcerned for convention and fashion?   Was the second spider distracted from his chore or merely indifferent to the task at hand?  Or am I simply wrong, imposing my own judgments and ignorance on the task?  Is the second spider the genius, the creator of a chandelier of new artistry and evolution, its value unrecognized by the half-witted human?  Why does order seem more perfect than disorder, entropy aside?

Regardless, neither spider will be fed this morning, the morning dew defiling the web's purpose and unsticking the sticky strands, no harvest to pluck from the traps.  And both illustrate a new ecosystem in my front beds, an opportunity created from the tall brown stems of Knautia macedonica, an unforeseen profit of its profligacy and a monument to the natural order of nature.      

It is not only grass and plant heavy with dew this morning, the very air is saturated, the warm ground giving back the recent rains we've had to the cool air.   My back yard above, the photo facing south, and front yard below, the photo facing north, are both cloaked in fog, hidden from the world and blanketed with quiet.  The sun is up, but nearly invisible, shuttered by the mist, no wind to clear a path for it to reach us and the world another world away.   I give you a perfect moment of the beginning of fall weather here in the Flint Hills, brought to you by mist, dew, and the lens of my iPhone.