Anyone who has spent time around kids has probably read Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White, or seen one of the movies made from the book. If you’re not familiar with the story, it is about a spider (Charlotte) who can write things on her web. By doing so, she saves the life of Wilbur, a special pet pig who otherwise would have been destined for the dinner table. What you may not know is that the spider in the story was actually based on a real type of spider from a very large family called Orb Weavers.

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Lately, things have been really noisy at our house. We have lots of oak trees that extend their canopy over our metal roof, and this year they are ridiculously full of acorns. When the wind blows (and even sometimes when it doesn’t), the acorns drop onto the roof with a rat-a-tat-tat that sounds like we’re in the middle of a hailstorm.

What the heck is going on?

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