Looking and Listening

Beginning this Mother's Day sitting on the porch listening and looking.  Mourning doves are at work calling each other.  Crows are awake.  No song birds yet.  There is a very large tulip poplar, sometimes called yellow poplar, in the center of the yard and several more in the woods.  But, tiny ones scattered all over the yard in the flower beds.  Some only a few inches tall and others as much as 6 and 8 feet tall.    I plan to dig one up and move it to my place - no yellow poplars there except perhaps deep in the woods, but I don't remember seeing one anywhere.  One of my forestry professors called them "gentlemen of the forest" because of their straight, tall stems that self-prune small lower limbs so that they make clean sawlogs.  The blossoms are absolutely beautiful but I haven't seen one in many years.  Probably just not looking in the right places at the right time……..Looking and listening.  I will do more of that….Bees are buzzing…..  Yesterday we watched a spider spinning a web which was just one line extending out about 15 inches from its attachment.   How in the world does she do that?  Just hanging out in mid-air?  Granted, she was tiny, but still…..Does the female or the male spin the web?