Garden Friends- Garden Tuesday

To those who are afraid of spiders..... I'm sorry. This spider is just too strange and wonderful not to share. 

She's called a spiny orb weaver. Some people call them crab spiders. You can see why. The are classified as beneficial spiders for the garden so she and/or her sisters got to live in the tree above the hammock.

I know she looks large here but she's barely as big as my fingernail.

Some of our other beneficial neighbors/residents are bats. This was the second of several we've found sleeping in our umbrella. I'd been wanting to make bat houses for them but now it seems unnecessary....

These guys are kinda cute and kinda scary, but I do like that they eat mosquitoes and gnats!

I never expected such a variety of "wildlife" in a city type yard.

I'm linking to Pam over at Sidewalk Shoes.