Spider Mukbang at 1:30 am
Here is the trigger warning. This post is about spiders, in an up close and personal way (with photos). Arachnophobes, you need to delete this email immediately, all others, I think you’ve got this.
Last night, I was up until 1:30 being fascinated by our stunning Ms. Charlotte, a golden orb weaver spider, and the 3 foot wide silk empire she created at our backdoor. I had my iPhone up against the dirty glass recording her every reaction.
Some people are into the Golden Globe awards, I am into golden orb weavers. They both have something in common. Both only come around once a year. Yes, Charlotte will be here guarding my door for a month or so. However, neither exist in their full golden glory all year round. They are both a special occasion.
Honestly, I don’t know anything about the Golden Globe awards except that people plan parties around it and dress up.
Well, this is my kind of party, just Charlotte and me on a hot and humid night enjoying the beautiful loudness of the late summer woods of North Carolina. I’m in a bathing suit.
In Winter, Charlotte will likely die, but she will leave behind a legacy of hundreds of children housed in a golden globe made of the strongest silk. In Spring, there will be 500 or so Charlottesque spiderlings hatching out of it. And come next late summer, there will be another great giantess named Charlotte perched on a golden web guarding our backdoor door at night and keeping the bugs out of our log cabin.
But isn’t this a Plant Based Food Vlog? why am I reading about spiders?
This fits into this Earth Based Kitchen space because this is an Earth Based topic, as in Earth or Nature focused spirituality. The web of life, our interconnectedness, and the divine spark that exists in and flows through all things is my spirituality. This fits in this space in the same way that the Appalachian cooking show on Youtube that I adore sometimes features Christian prayer, which I also appreciate.
All food comes from great sacrifice and we should be grateful and do great work with it. I am intentionally observing the sacrifice instead of turning away from it. I do this to keep me honest and humble. This is also why I am plant based…because I will not eat what I can not look in the eye and kill. Do you see how this fits. I almost feel like I am coming out of a closet.
Also you might consider Charlotte to be a guest food blogger after what she does next.
Charlotte’s Mukbang
Prior to my taking this photo, Charlotte had - in 20 minutes - woven this enormous 3 foot wide golden web, which she used to fish a bug right out of the hot and humid air. She was fast. It took her a quick second to inject the critter with the neurotoxic venom she uses to paralyze her prey. I didn’t even get a chance to identify the victim. The victim probably had no clue what happened either, it just flew out of life. She then used her silk to wrap it up like a sandwich for supper later.
Now it’s supper time, and she has brought her golden silk package to the center of the web. She inserts her fang into it - like you might inject an orange juice box with an angled straw - and she slurps up it’s juicy insides until the package collapses in on itself and the tiny beast inside shrivels up into a speck. This takes at least an hour. Charlotte is a slow food movement original.
Don’t be appalled, humans do far more inglorious things to their prey. Things that actually shock other humans. Charlotte is just being typical for her kind.
Facts & Observations
These golden orb weavers are all over the place at this time of year. In fact, I don’t even need hairspray, the silk that gathers in my hair during my morning forest walks does the job just as well. Golden Orb Weavers have the strongest spider silk of all the spiders and they can manufacture 7 different kinds of depending on the task at hand. Is she building a web, cocooning her prey, creating a nursery, or is she just providing me with a brushable, medium hold to keep my bangs swept off my face.
Charlotte and I have an agreement. She gets the doorway all to herself at night, which I tear down in the morning - if I remember. If I don’t remember then I get to start my day with a silk masque facial, a shiver up my spine, and I slap my face all say long.
Charlotte doesn’t mind me removing her web. In fact, she’s not even there, and she won’t even try to cast a web again until night fall.
We respect each other, Charlotte and me. We are both Golden Girls.
A Golden Orb Weavers venom is a neurotoxin but it is not lethal to humans and the effects of a bite typically goes away in a day. They aren’t aggressive. I’ve had these spiders on my face and all over me and have never been bitten. And they are great to have around, as they will protect your gardens from hungry bugs.
It’s a Charlotte World
Also, the females don’t kill their diminutive boyfriends, which are indeed tiny critters, some are even hard to see. Compared that to a female that can be several inches long and wide. The sexual dimorphism is huge. I saw a female orb weaver in Hawaii that was as big as a hand.
Instead of killing her lovers, she lets them live at the edge of her web eating the food that she catches and warning off other males.
But, I have to wonder if she even understands his purpose at all. I mean, she knows he is there, but he probably doesn’t smell like food so she doesn’t hunt him, he offers no threat to her, and he probably tidies up her webs… His smallness is his mating strategy.
Isn’t nature just fascinating?
After looking at the Mukbang video again, I can see that Charlotte has a grasshopper.