Two unwelcomed guests

The other day, Ashley and I were gathering tomatoes from our garden. I noticed a dense web surrounding some of the leaves, so I thought, "ya know, the boys would love to see what emerges out of this". I could tell it was a spider, but just didn't know what kind...Well, today, after sitting in this jar for about 3 days, she decided she would become visable AND lay her massive egg sack.

Here she is...in all her (not so) spendid glory...

Can you see her? Can you see that red spot on her abdomen? Do you see her egg sac up at the top left picture? Yes, it's a brown widow! I dare not take the top off to get a better pic, so instead you will have to settle for this picture I found of another brown widow.

Black and Brown Widows are quite prevalent around our yard. Does anyone know how to get rid of them? I thought maybe guinneas. Do you think that will work?

Now on to our next guest. I have search high and low on the internet to find out what kind this is. I am at a loss. It just about freaks me out as much as the widow, but just because of the looks of it. See, a while back, the boys put a caterpiller in a jar with leaves. We were gone for about a week. When we came back, the caterpillar had died with the leaves and it decomposing...I know...it's gross, but every day is a homeschool day around here. :D Besides just the decomposing, there were also about a handful of regular house flies in the jars. Well, boys being boys, they wanted to see the life cycle through. We also noticed 5 or 6 black egg type things inside of the jar. That also spurred their curiousity. So, the good mother I am, I decided to allow their endulgence. We paid little attention over the course of the last couple of weeks. I noticed the house flies had died off, but no spawn. I contemplated just throwing the jar out, after all, who wants a science project of this sort on their kitchen counter? For whatever reason, I left it, call it laziness, call it not wanting to touch it, call it the instinct of a teacher-mom.

Today, this is what greeted us...

There are two of them. They are SOME sort of fly. I just don't know of what kind. It is about 4 or 5 times larger than a normal house fly. The hair on it looks like spikes. It is solid black except for it's face (I guess you could call it that)~that is like a greyish color.

I did find this picture on the internet, but the owner to this picture seemed just as curious as to what kind of fly as I.

So, anyone? Any idea at all? I have half a thought to release the flies into the widow jar to have the children watch "nature".

Until next time!