Wildlife in the Strangest Places

Last night, I was lying in bed crocheting.  I had the lamp on and my glasses as well.  I feel phantoms all the time - my scalp, my arms, my toes, my legs.  Brushes of air or hair across my skin.  That feeling that there's a hair out of place and tickling my jaw...  So last night, in the dense growth of invisible hair on my leg, I felt a phantom.  Absent-mindedly, I brushed at it with my hand... and made contact.

I jerked my hand back and looked.  If I hadn't been wearing my glasses, I'd have never seen it.  On my leg was the tiniest of translucent spiders.  I'd accidently smooshed it, so I couldn't tell what it was, but I suspect it was just a baby house spider.

I see these all the time in the pool.  They fall in from the trees, float briefly, then drown.  I'm forever scooping the things out of the pool when I'm skimming leaves or pine needles from the surface.  They're harmless enough, but I've never seen one actually in the house.

We have lots of those little black jumping spiders.  I'd have recognized one of those.  But not this little one.  I'm just guessing.   Now I have to contemplate where he might have come from.  Has a spider left a sack of hatchlings in my room????

In a happier encounter...  My son and I were driving around the block after ordering him some new glasses.  It had gone from sunny to pouring down rain and back to sunny in the space of five minutes while we were in the shop and it was hot and steamy when we came out.  He asked for some frozen yogurt, and to get there, we needed to go around the block into the neighborhood behind the glasses place.  As we drove slowly down the residential street, my boy spotted a young fox sitting in the sun.
 

He sat there quietly, eyes closed, absorbing the warmth.  He loooked like he'd gotten a bath and then been toweled off - his coat was so ruffled up.  I imagine he'd  been doing some serious grass-rolling.

He's very regal looking, isn't he?  We have neighborhood foxes at home and at work.  If they're not sick, they're actually lovely things to have around.  Vermin is not a problem here.  Our little girl fox trots around the neighborhood like she owns the place.  Darling Man was headed to work one day and saw a fox sitting out in someone's front yard about a block from work.  He slowed to look at it and it turned and dashed for the front porch and sat down as if to say, "I'm not a fox!  I'm a dog!  I live here, see?"  I've seen that same fox on work's side lawn and hanging out down by the dishes.  None of them are afraid of us, but the still keep their distance.  That's probably wise on their part, but I think they are a lovely addition to our world.