October 2021 Update: Staking is Complete!

Upon realizing that the land is staked for construction, we went on another expedition into "the land" as we call it, and we found quite a few surprises! Some prickly, some eight-legged, some mossy. Check it out!

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Below is a photo tour of our land the first time we were able to follow the stakes and visualize exactly where the home site will be. As you can tell, we're so excited!

Surprise! Welcome to our driveway. :)

It turns out the staking was completed some time ago. We had expected to be informed so we assumed it wasn't done this entire time, especially as the forest is so thick we couldn't see the stakes from the road.

It turns out a stake visible from the road marks the driveway, not the edge of the land as we first thought.

We did notice one pink stake at the road over a month ago (above), but we took that to be the edge of the property. However, upon my husband's check in this week, the builder told us the land had been staked, so we returned to take another look, and upon peering more closely into the jungle, sure enough we saw it - a second stake! It must have been there all along. The first stake turned out to be marking the driveway and a sparse line of stakes and ribbons tied to trees continued from there.

Who can spot the second stake further in?

As we had our little one with us, we couldn't venture any further in at the time, so the next day we asked grandma to babysit and we donned our hiking boots and long pants in the 90+ degree weather and set off.

We followed the stakes further and further in. Several surprises awaited us.

In my earnestness to find each stake, which was harder than it seems from the photos which I took after locating them, of course, I blithely almost walked into this special lady (photo below). The largest spider species in the state! It was very startling at first, but then I got over my initial reaction and got closer to get a better look. I knew exactly what she was and I was pretty excited to see her, from a little distance, of course.

Wow! A golden orb weaver. Notice her special zipper-shape web. They are the biggest spiders in the state of Florida.

And she wasn't the only one! We saw several spiders on their webs. However, that was the best photo I got. They are quick to move when they realize they're being watched. In case you don't know, orb weavers, also known as yellow and black argiope, are sometimes commonly called banana spiders but they are not true banana spiders. These are some of the best garden predators we could ask for! They will peacefully weave their special webs and watch over the garden, eating as many bugs as possibly along the way. Their impressive webs have even been known to catch a hummingbird. Just don't walk into them by accident, unless you like being frightened out of your mind as a spider several inches long is apt to do. These girls can get 3-5 inches if you count the legspan. (The males don't get large at all.)

I had actually been hoping we would have these on the land, and I was so happy when I saw them! There is an interesting mix of amazement, adoration and terror when looking at these massive beauties. I read on one gardening forum that some gardeners even have them shipped in! Sadly, I do have a heavy heart realizing these girls are in the path of the driveway clearing, but I can only hope they hear the mower and hide underneath a log or something!

Believe it or not I'm extremely arachnophobic. But I also don't like most bugs of any kind and spiders keep other bugs at bay. At least argiopes are yellow and black and not too hard to spot if you're looking for them.

Another surprise! What is this cactus doing here? And it wasn't the only one.

On a more terrifying note, we also saw an unidentified spider that I couldn't get a clear picture of. I have personally never seen a spider do this: so, a huge brown spider - but not a wolf spider, as I know they are ground dwellers who make nests - was above our heads and had made a huge thick, almost rope-like string down to the ground, presumably to repel from. I never would have seen him. David saw him only because he almost walked into him and that's when the spider scurried up into the nearest leaf and CURLED THE LEAF AROUND HIM LIKE A BLANKET, hiding himself underneath it. It was like a spider Snuggie.

Um.

AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!

I've never seen a spider manipulate the surroundings like that! What else are they capable of? And I have no idea what kind he was... some sort of large, clever woods spider that dwells in trees and swings about like Tarzan in his free time, repelling down massive web-ropes, and knits his own sweaters out of leaves in his free time, I'm guessing. If anyone has any suggestions, I would be curious to hear.

On a more pleasant note, we found several patches of cactus (photo above). For some reason, this made us happy. We just didn't expect it and it was kind of a funny sight, I suppose.

Check out these huge vines. Tarzan, is that you?

The trail continued and eventually we found several states marked "house env." I don't know what ENV stands for; can anyone tell me? Either way, we were able to reason out approximately where the house and backyard would be and we were beyond excited to picture it.

The below picture is behind the house site. It's a tough call deciding how much to clean up for specific uses and how wild to leave the rest of it; it's so beautiful as it is. There's something so primal and natural and "right" feeling standing in the middle of a totally natural setting and just letting it alone.

What pretty natural paths we found. I could have walked for hours just taking in the fresh air (especially if I was wearing a spider-proof suit.)

I can imagine hanging a simple swing from one of the branches and looking outside one day to see our little one climbing trees; I always loved climbing trees as a child. That's one thing she definitely wouldn't have been able to do at our last house! My other hope is that, like me, she is immune to poison ivy. So far anyway, despite many encounters, I've never had a reaction. Of course, I'm a bit afraid to write that down officially - it feels like I'm tempting the ivy, haha.

Final happy surprise - Spanish moss! I had been hoping to see some on the oaks around here, but this is the first time I noticed it.

Finally, we wrapped up our adventure, and on the way back to the road we saw this water oak dripping in Spanish moss. It's such an iconic sight in this part of the state but I've certainly never had anything like this in my backyard! Since moving to Florida, I've always lived in the suburbs and so has my husband; it's just wild for us to try and imagine living in the midst of a mini-wilderness. Certainly the decision to sell everything and trade it in for this seems very, very worth it in moments like this.

With Love,

Molly

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