Weaver, photo by Harold Davis.

Before the kids left for school this morning, Julian found this spider on the backyard play structure.

I got the spider to crawl onto a leaf, while Julian ran into the house for a jar.

Once inside the jar, the spider started spinning.

Julian wanted to take the spider to school for show-and-tell, but I preempted him with photographer’s privilege!

In order to get the spider to stay still enough to photograph with my 105mm macro and 6X worth of extension tubes, I had to put the jar in the freezer for a while–elicting murmurs of sympathy from Phyllis for the poor spider until she actually saw what the spider looked like up close.

What I like about these pictures is that you can actually see the spider weaving and spinning, and the thread the spider is hanging on to.