Natural Marvels

Today I saw one of many marvels in my garden. It was an bright yellow goldfinch blazing a path across my yard. It's one of my many surprise visitors.
And I get a lot.
Which is rather surprising, since I live in the middle of town.
Some are large, like the raccoons, opossums, skunks and bunnies.
Some are tiny, like ladybugs, bees and waterbugs.
Some are yucky, like earwigs, slugs and spiders.
Some are beautiful, like the butterflies, birds and moths.
Some are surprising, like the mantis, cicadas and sphinx moths.
From the graceful dragonflies to the silly pillbugs, I love to watch them all.
Even the spiders.
And I hate spiders. I'm really borderline arachnophobic.
But in the garden they are truly marvels. So many sizes shapes and colors. So many different kinds of webs and dens. Orbs and funnels and tunnels and psychotic looking webs are everywhere.
The ones that are most fun to watch live in the rocks. I don't think they even build webs. They still scare me just as much as even the tiniest spiders do. But they have one endearing quality. They always carry their egg sacks around. If you disturb them, they scramble off, carrying that white ball of young along with them. Somehow it makes them a bit more personable.
My husband keeps telling me spiders are good because they eat bugs. Somehow that thought just isn't comforting enough when they drop down out of nowhere on a nearly invisible thread. Which, by the way, just plain feel creepy when you walk through them. Nasty invisible sticky threads!
So we have come to sort of a truce, spiders and I. They are allowed to live outside. As long as they don't move into an area I have to walk through. Then they get relocated. Now in the house...that's a different story.