Sticky is a fine word for this summer's puckish "toing and froing" between sunshine and rain, steamy heat and (occasionally) pleasantly cool temperatures, weather moderate and weather extreme. This summer is turning out to be a particularly unpredictable state of affairs, and it is a glue pot or "sticky wicket" at the best of times.
This week’s mucilaginous word offering hails from the Old English stic meaning “to adhere, be embedded, stay fixed or be fastened”. Then there are the Proto-Germanic stik, Old Saxon stekan, Dutch stecken, Old High German stehhan and German stechen all meaning much the same thing. Most of this week's word kin are rooted in the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) form steig meaning "to affix, point or be pointed".
Recent mornings have been lovely times for walks or hanging out in the garden, but by ten, Beau and I are are happy to be indoors and looking out, rather than actually being out in the heat and humidity. At twilight, off we go again, and we potter around the village, peering into trees for walnuts, little green acorns, ripening plums, and flowers blooming unseen in nearby leafy depths like late summer jewels.
On early walks, hedgerows are festooned with spider webs, and the strands of silk are strung with beads of pearly dew, looking for all the world like fabulous neck ornaments. Summer webs here are, for the most part, the work of the orb weaver known as the writing spider, corn spider or common garden spider (Argiope aurantia). Artfully spun from twig to twig, the spider's creations are sublime. No two are the same, and they are often several feet from one edge to the other.
As I peered at a web in the hedgerow one morning this week, I thought about a friend (now moved away) who used to "do" web walks with me and occasionally rang the doorbell at sunrise when she discovered a real whopper and just had to share it. I visited a few of her early finds still wearing pajamas and slippers.
I thought too of the metaphor of Indra's jeweled web and how we are all connected in the greater scheme of things. Emaho! Sticky or not, it's all good.
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