{"id":22974,"date":"2026-01-22T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22974"},"modified":"2026-01-22T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:01:00","slug":"a-new-year-puzzle-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/22\/a-new-year-puzzle-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Year Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES<\/em>
\n\u201cDad!\u201d
\nMy dogs teach me the meaning of their various barks. There is \u201cdeer bark,\u201d a throaty, deep, projected bark directed toward the hills. There is \u201cUPS-man bark,\u201d a staccato series of sharp, piercing yips. There is the \u201cPlease-let-me-in-there-is-something-unknown-out-here bark,\u201d an over-the-shoulder, intermittent, high-pitched plea.
\nMy kids teach me the same conversational shorthand. The \u201cDad!\u201d coming from an entrance to the bathroom fell into that \u201cI have found a living thing where it definitely should not be or I do not want it to be\u201d camp.
\nI did not have to wait long for the expansion.
\n\u201cDad, there\u2019s a spider in the bathroom!\u201d
\nMy not-very-consoling response: \u201cI know, isn\u2019t he a beauty? Actually, I think he might be a she considering how big she is.\u201d
\nYou see, I knew the spider to which the concern referred as I saw the small beast scurry up the wall as I cleaned up for Georgia\u2019s arrival.
\nI added, \u201cLook at the red on her. And she\u2019s so fuzzy, isn\u2019t she?\u201d
\nPause.
\n\u201cUmm, will you come and get her?\u201d
\n\u201cNo way. You want her in there unless you want to be covered in other insects.\u201d
\nOK, so there was some embellishment on that last point. My goal, though\u2014to introduce a little comfort with a small part of nature that surely did more good than harm (unless you are a moth).
\nThis all dovetailed with a conversation Simon and I had about his goal to reintroduce small talk and conversation to his cohort at college. He used the term \u201cthe familiar stranger,\u201d referring to that person you frequently see in class or around campus but don\u2019t yet know. Simon talked about the power and importance of introducing yourself to them to get a sense of who they are and what they are doing.
\nI love this idea.
\nMore and more, it seems familiar strangers of the natural world surround us; we recognize them, but we don\u2019t really know them. Increasingly, people spend more time indoors than out, more frequently squint at wild things rather than greet them wide-eyed, and the curiosity and wonder that crashed on us like waves as children have ebbed to mild suspicion and fear.
\nThe spider in Georgia\u2019s bathroom was a familiar stranger to me. Originally, I referred to her as a wolf spider\u2014a kind of catchall name I give to all those squat, furry spiders whose eyes glisten like little black turrets on their head.
\nTaking Simon\u2019s challenge to introduce myself to these strangers, I looked her up. And yep, she was a she\u2014a female red-backed jumping spider. During our introduction, I learned she was a female by the elegant black racing stripe on her abdomen (which males do not have), that she is a mimic of velvet ants (who are actually wasps) and, as her name implies, that she is a jumping spider (not a wolf spider at all).
\nA furtive beast, she quickly hid, disappearing into any one of a hundred haunts in her small corner of our house. She will be back, though, leaping from sink to wall, then backing her way under the mirror. Or, perhaps, circumnavigating the orchid pot as I work to get a glimpse of her teal chelicerae (something I discovered she had only after she left, but which I long to see).
\nWhen she returns, there will be a major change, one as simple as it is profound, all based on Simon\u2019s goal of reconnecting. She will now be familiar; a stranger no more.<\/p>\n

Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 54th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and their two mini-Dachshunds. The baby members of their flock have now become adults; Georgia and Simon are fledging in North Carolina, and Penelope has recently changed roosting sites to Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES \u201cDad!\u201d My dogs teach me the meaning of their various barks. There is \u201cdeer bark,\u201d a throaty, deep, projected bark directed toward the hills. There is \u201cUPS-man bark,\u201d a staccato series of sharp, piercing yips. There is the \u201cPlease-let-me-in-there-is-something-unknown-out-here bark,\u201d an over-the-shoulder, intermittent, high-pitched plea. My kids teach me the same conversational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":22975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-science-place"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22976,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22974\/revisions\/22976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}