Spider Blogging

A couple of days ago I noticed a spider web and a big spider right outside my bedroom window. (It took me a minute to be sure it was outside, so I could go into curiosity mode rather than panic.) It's body was about as big as the end of my thumb, colored brown and red and yellow; it's legs seemed to be red and yellow striped. Yesterday it was gone, but in the meantime someone assured me it was a good garden spider, so I was mostly glad to see it again, today. I tried to photograph it, but my camera refused to focus on it, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to try the manual settings. I'm going to have someone trim my ivy (I always hate that, but I know it can't be growing over the roof), and I made a point of showing him the spider: Don't get bit, but don't disturb it, either. And Brandon was cool with it...