Dew

You're going to have to look very, very close -- see the elaborate spider web stretched in front of the vine? It's been there for weeks, a late summer entry in the garden art expo.

But it's hard to see. You need two things to fully admire spiderwebs: oblique light and dew. We have beautiful light here, but up against the vine covered fence sunlight doesn't slant in a way to capture the fine strands of the web.

And we don't have dew. I miss dew.

When Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and author, came to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, her hosts gave her a tour of the garden, and she admired the native grasses. She's from upstate New York, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi tribe, well acquainted with how ripe seedheads of tall grasses can look on a summer morning. Oh, she said, how beautiful these must look laced with dew.

Her hosts, native Pueblo students who grew up here, stared at her, completely baffled. Dew?

Years ago in my old garden back east I captured a necklace of spiderweb when the light was from the side and the dew frosted it without making actual drops.

But here we never have the morning moisture to decorate grasses and spiderwebs and leaf edges. Still, if you look carefully and if you are right there in front of the fence, you will see the fine work of woven art. 

I am thinking this spider must be pretty successful at catching breakfast. Without sparkling dew on it, bugs must blunder in without seeing it. I've noticed some of her catches, all wound up in fine silk, stored for a late dinner perhaps. 

It's beautiful and fascinating. But it would look so much nicer with dew glistening on it.