Oh, the webs we weave...

The other day I found a spider web in our garage. When I went to take it down, I noticed how intricate the design was, and didn't have the heart to ruin that hard working spider's web. So, I took a picture and then waited a few hours to let the sentimentality wear off so I wouldn't feel as guilty.

Here are a couple of facts I found about spider webs:

1. Webs allow a spider to catch prey without having to expend energy by running it down. Thus it is an efficient method of gathering food.

2. However, constructing the web is in itself an energetically costly process due to the large amount of protein required, in the form of silk.

3. After a time the silk will lose its stickiness and thus become inefficient at capturing prey. It is not uncommon for spiders to eat their own web daily to recoup some of the energy used in spinning. The silk proteins are thus recycled.

So, if you spend a lot of energy on a project, and don't get the desired results ... take a lesson from our friend Spidey, and eat the web to recoup the energy.

On a totally different side note - Tim Tam Slam!

As a missionary in Hong Kong we would Tim Tam Slam with our apartment-mates any time an investigator made a commitment to join the church... it was our own little chocolate indulgence celebration. Mission legend has it that a missionary from Down-Under brought the tradition to Hong Kong. You can only imagine my pure joy when Debbie Grewal returned home from her trip to Sydney with a sleeve of Tim Tams! So I taught Benj the ways - bite off a part of each end to make a straw, then use the Tim Tam as a straw with hot chocolate (since it's summer and warm, we used milk), finally - as soon as the straw works and you taste the hot chocolate (milk) you flip your head back and eat the Tim Tam without using your hands.

Great fun. You're anxious to try it now, right?