Won’t you come into my parlour…

GAH!!! I just went to step outside to feed Xena and wound up face to face with a monster.
Fair warning: if you’re afraid of spiders, this would be an excellent time to not read the rest of this entry and go find some kitten pictures instead.
To give you a sense of scale, here’s our back door only partially open. The web completely covers it. Somebody had a busy night.

It’s quite a beautiful piece of work, one that I backed out of as quick as I could when I felt it hit my face.

Good damn thing too, because here’s the proprietor. Its body is nearly as big as my thumb.

I’d estimate that I have to bend completely over at a 90 degree angle (or as close to it as my body will allow) at the waist to get under that web without going through any part of it.
I think I’ll be breaking out the garden hose first thing in the morning. There’s only room for one world wide web at my house, sucka – and I sure as hell don’t wanna walk into it in the dead of night when I’m just trying to feed my dog!