She is hiding behind that egg sack and she's huge, trust me. Yikes, do they normally lay that many egg sacks? So I decide that I need check the other window wells and see if there are others multiplying as rapidly as this little lady is. Low and behold I found black widow number two in the other window well. Check her out, I think she's further along than I am. That green grasshopper is still alive trying to get out, but I think they must wait until they are dead to eat them, like the poor sap in this next picture, that you can't even really tell was a grasshopper. She was going to town on him when I first spotted her.
If you look below her, you can see the carnage of grasshoppers gone by, apparently she doesn't like the legs and heads so much, unlike praying mantis's who start with the head while they are still alive. Yah, we have video of that from last summer...fascinating stuff. But anyway.
I think this lady is gearing up to lay some sacks herself. These things freak me out, mostly because of Luke. We found one in the garage a few weeks ago that we killed, but I'm scared he is going to grab something out of the garage and not even notice the web or the spider hanging out close by, like kids do. I think we need to take some serious action before these sacks hatch...can you imagine those millions of baby spiders? The thought makes me an arachnophobic.
