fishing for the big catch

There's a spider that lives in one of the hanging geraniums on my porch.  Well, during the day she lives there.  Every morning she primly eats her web and packs herself back to hunker down in a folded up leaf and wait for evening. 

Because in the evening, if our porch light is on, it's the spider Golden Corral.  Every kind of flying nocturnal thing flocks to our porch light like it's the only light for miles.  (Which isn't strictly true, it's only hundreds of yards, but they don't appear to know that.)

So, at just about dusk every evening, Miss Spider begins building her fantastic web between two of the posts on the porch, spreading out her tablecloth and sharpening her knives.  She's fun to watch through the front windows, and usually I wish her good luck as I head up to my own bed. 

Unless she builds that web between these two posts:

This picture was taken standing straight in front of the front door.  (Also, since I'm not a camera genius, and there wasn't enough light, and I'm not a tripod, and the shutter stayed open for like five seconds, the picture stinks.  Tips?)  Which means she's built that web dead center over the porch steps.  So often has she done this, now, that I've taken to remembering to go check on those chickens before dark, or I'll get a faceful of sticky web.  And in the dark, when you've just run into a spiderweb...who knows where the spider ended up?

I have enough compassion left for the spider that I'm all torn up when I do forget and have to take a broom out there if I want to go down my front porch steps after dark.  It's a little sad to see her sigh, cinch up her belt, and start over again.  But every night, when she carefully builds that web there, I wonder.  Was she not catching big enough stuff over on the other side of the porch??