Trigger Alert: We’re talking about spiders in this post. Pictures, too. But it is a very gentle spider.

The spider in question is a banded garden spider in our raspberry patch. It showed up in late July (unfortunately, my camera card with those photos on it became corrupted), and my husband and I have been watching it ever since.

She quickly grew to be a good sized spider. By September 18, her legs spread over an inch across.

And by October 1, she had gotten even bigger.

And I do think she is a female, because according to experts, females are both more conspicuous and bigger — up to 2 inches with her legs spread out. Yup.

A little less than 1.5 inches across.

If you look on the internet, you can easily find photos of people with garden spiders perched on their hands. Other people. I like her a lot … but no. Not there yet.

I assume that she knows something is nearby when I hover around her to take photos, but it doesn’t bother her. She has never made an aggressive move, except when flies land in her web. I hope she ate a lot of Japanese beetles, too. And passes a taste for them on to her babies.

On October 1, 2024, she had just about worn out this web. She moved a few feet over several days later.

But here’s the thing — when I saw her today, I think she may have laid her eggs, because her abdomen isn’t bulging as much. In fact, it looks kinda deflated.

Adult garden spiders rarely overwinter. Instead, they lay their eggs in the vegetation, and die in the first frost.

I feel like I’m living Charlotte’s Web. No Wilbur the Pig, but I’ve become attached to this spider.