I found this beauty alongside the path I was walking yesterday, (8-13-08), and as I set up to take its portrait, it picked itself off the web and assumed a more threatening posture. This is the only photo I got as I ran out of space on the small card I was using, (31 photos).

It caused me to remember an incident that occurred when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I was running through a field close to our home and for some reason I stopped. As I looked around, I realized that there were about a dozen of these beasties all around me in their webs. Not being able to find safe passage through them, I went from 0 to 60 in about 1/10 second and burst clear. (While the venom from these large spiders isn’t fatal, it does inflict a painful reminder of your encounter with them).

This is an Argiope garden spider.