Charmed by the Unexpected

Have you ever noticed how the something unexpected transforms an ordinary time or place into something extraordinary? It happened to me yesterday when I was pulling weeds and trimming bushes.

First I noticed a discarded cicada skin. The sun was shining on it like a spot light.

Then as I was taking the buckets of clippings back to the forest, I noticed a very large spider web suspended from the maple tree and anchored to the ground. Again - the sun was shining on it like a spot light. There were lots of flying insects around the web and the blank places in the web structure show that the spider had already been very successful with this particular web placement. By the time I came back with my camera the spider has disappeared (probably up into the tree) but the web was still magnificent. It was my little celebration for yesterday!