The House of Spiders

It’s a quarter past midnight, ending a day of on again, off again, on again rainy hours… same as yesterday and the day before.  The soil was actually pliable enough to plant five Butterfly Weeds in the cleared-out corner of the prairie garden, causing me a troubled night of lousy sleep as my head was throbbing each of the three times I woke to drink water and pacify a pleading Lacey… feed me, feed me, FEED ME!!! 

I’m no worse for wear this early morning, but my soft adjustable bed is seductively singing its irresistible siren song, climb in and let me help you to a blissful morning of luxurious sleep… I promise… I promise…I promise…, as it lures me into an early morning of gentle torture of never ever finding that perfect adjustment that gives relief, even though I raise and lower it umpteen times trying.

Good night… bad night… whatever, see you when the cats start complaining about no breakfast.

A calico, sitting in my doorway at 7:00 am prompt, meowing, and meowing, and meowing in that weak low voice of hers.  Impossible to ignore after a straight five minutes of feed me's; thus, my morning wakeup call.  

I’d like to pretend I’m not one of those ancient beings who tells the same story a hundred and one times to drive their relatives insane… but maybe I am.  I’m only telling this story a second time around, I think it’s only the second time… anyway, because… well, because, I have absolutely nothing else to talk about.  Isn’t that so heartbreakingly sad ☹

Spiders – one of my posts years ago featured them as vermin to be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner and good riddance! 😊 One must remember, I think I was around eleven years old at the time of the event, and until that time, the longer the legs the more power of frozen fear a spider held over me.

My parents were no help either, in that they perpetuated that myth that Pholcid spiders, aka cellar spiders, aka daddy long-legs spiders were the world’s most venomous animal but didn’t have jaws to bite humans effectively.  Of course, they have venom, but it isn’t particularly strong, and those jaws, well studies are sparse in that department, but the cellar spider does seem content living alongside humans without viewing them as lunch.

While the cellar spider looks so fragile, they’re only fragile in the sense that they probably crumple into a leggy mess when vacuumed up.  Otherwise, look out house spiders, flies, bees, wasps, hopefully cockroaches, and heaven forbid… other little cellar spiders, you’re all on the dinner menu of this little tyke with eyes bigger than its tummy.  It’s even been known to wander away from its own messy web to infiltrate a different spider species web and pretend caught, only to eat the spider who has come to feast on its catch.  Devilish little creatures. 

Growing up in a small town of around five thousand souls next door to a smaller town of perhaps a thousand more, summer vacations were often filled with too many tedious days of nothing to do.  One year, the School Kid House Cleaners Program, or whatever it was called, was opened for business to give bored youngsters something more to do than tossing grasshoppers into burn cans to watch them explode.  I was meek and perfect, so I signed up strictly for the big bucks.

While I cleaned more than one house that summer, only one house has remained in my memory to this day.  The county sheriff’s wife, whose son was one of my classmates, wanted the inside of their home completely vacuumed and dusted.  I knew how to clean a house, mom saw to that early in my life, so… a piece of cake, or so I thought.  It was a large house, an all-day job with lunch.

Dragging the vacuum cleaner into the master bedroom, the last room of the day, and closing the door to cut down on the noise level, all seemed normal until I reached a corner of the room.  I cannot even begin to describe the emotions that swirled in my mind as I looked from that floors corner up the long path of wall meeting wall to the ceiling.  It was packed with those freakishly long-legged creatures stacked upon each other like sardines in a can.

From corner to corner, along that great highway of where wall meets ceiling, they waited crowded beside each other, and on down the next corner to meet the floor. Slowly turning in a circle with eyes glued to every surface around me, I concluded screaming wasn’t an option even though every crevasse in the room was crowded solid with those little beasties. How could these people not even notice?

Apparently, the eats were plentiful, or perhaps they were feasting on each other, as they seemed to be multiplying beautifully, a complete ecosystem of their very own in this well-loved bedroom… then along came Yvonne and sucked the life right out of that colony with her trusty vacuum cleaner.  The genocide seemed to last forever, but we all know spiders can hide in pure air, so I’m sure the colony exploded with new bodies spinning their tales of how one day long ago, the great monster of wind made a hearty feast of them.

I never mentioned a word about the spiders, as one never knows if they were looked upon as fond pets; but every night I dreamed of daddy long legs crawling back out of the vacuum cleaner hose to haunt me, and could have sworn they were crawling all over me for weeks to come.

Cabbage White Butterfly, Pieris rapae

Cabbage Whites have a darkened underside of the wing, 

which enables them to heat up quickly in the sun.  

The degree of darkening differs from individual to individual, 

and is controlled by temperature and day length.

Like an angel...

Carpenter Bees resting early morning on Liatris aspera flowers,

the male with a very square white patch between the eyes.

American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

I've seen three Monarchs this year,

but as far as a photo is concerned, this is as good as it gets.

American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana var. lactea

Pearl Crescent Butterfly, Phyciodes tharos on Aromatic Aster plant

Large Milkweed Bug Nymphs, Oncopeltus fasciatus

Seed bugs in the family Lygaeidae 

that feed upon the juices from the seeds of milkweed.

One week later

Mud Monster - clay oozing up through the cracks

Skipper Butterflies

Colorful Hover Fly

Chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips'

Aster 'Paten'

Winterthur Viburnum

Schizophyllum commune, the Split-gill Mushroom

Found in the wild on decaying trees

after rainy seasons followed by dry spells.

Mushroom resembles undulating waves of tightly packed corals 

or loose Chinese fan.

Orchard Spider, Leucauge venusta, out of it's web.

I didn't see this spider until it moved.

Hackberry Emperor Butterfly (Asterocampa celtis)

Isn't it a beauty?

1.37 - 2.45" 

This one is closer to 1.50"

The Four-Footer Brigade

~

Charlotte & Austin chillin' out.

Lacey thinking mommy's water is the best,

…if only she can reach it.

Dustin & Austin waiting for dinner.

Lacey Died

[Lacey quit eating yesterday, and was wobbly and lethargic today.  Four hours was spent at the Nashville Veterinary Specialists Emergency Clinic before I was told their opinion.  She is staying overnight and perhaps several more nights, while they diagnose her condition, and come up with a new treatment plan.  I have a sinus headache from, I guess, crying so much.  This post was mostly already written before today, so I'm publishing it as is.  I plan to take a break for as long as I need to.  Always know, I enjoy you all.  Take care.] 

This Post Is Linked To:

Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World

Important Stuff

 

Only the spider paid no mind when the unicorn called softly to her through the open door.  Arachne was busy with a web which looked to her as through the Milky Way had begun to fall like snow.  The unicorn whispered, "Weaver, freedom is better, freedom is better", but the spider fled unhearing up and down her iron loom.

        

        ~ Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn 

You know… when one’s sitting in the powder room, staring mindlessly at that scummy bathtub just three feet away, it’s totally impossible for the eyes not to take a nosedive straight down the convergence of tub and wall to that boring area just inches above the floor, and discover an industrialist tiny black speck of a spider waiting in its web. 

After that discovery, the first line of inquiry on each powder room visit seemed to always be, eyeballing that tiny speck of terror; and if it had vanished, wondering if it was hidden under the jutting edge of the tub side for a nap, or if it had - horror of horrors – moved to another room and out of one’s control.

After reading a little article on insects in one’s home, it’s fascinating that it suggested leaving spiders alone to feast on other littler insects in one’s collection of rooms.  If one has ever seen a spider egg sack hatch and watched a gazillion (just a tiny exaggeration) minute creepy crawlies scattering for independence, one gets the feeling that isn’t such a capital idea.

It was time to declare the home as one’s own, and not the property of spiderdom, after the web doubled in size as a week passed by.  A tongue depressor confiscated from the crafts room, and an old Regal Entertainment Group quart size Coco-Cola cup stored under the kitchen sink for decades… all one needed to whisk that little tyke to outdoor freedom and a world of predation.

Best of luck, little one!

Each year it’s a given something, or somethings will work on the chimney cap and/or metal chase cover to try to break in and discover greener pastures.  We’ve had many delusional starlings during past years, and the same this year, or so one thought.  The racket lasted for days, but each trek to the outer edges of the garden and looking up at the chimney revealed nothing, except on one such outing the noise was indeed heard but no critter sighted.  That tenacity was becoming quite annoying.

Sitting at the computer and working on photos, it was fortuitous I heard the moment victory was achieved, announced by a fleeting two seconds of claws scraping on metal as it descended like a flash into the bowels of hell, landing with a thud.  It fell somehow to the crawl space under the house.  Forthwith, the objective was a prison escape clawing one’s way through concrete walls and metal grating.

Now you and I both know only a skeleton will remain with that kind of absurd thinking, but this little tyke was not a builder of family homes for people, so what did it know.  The clawing was incessant with darkness calming it down.  It was feared Animal Pro wouldn’t make it here in time, as the scratching quit for a day, then reappeared more subtle.  The minute the crawl space door was opened, it was confirmed to be a grey squirrel staring back at the guy.

It would be a perfect world if animals knew an open door meant escape, but somehow it never registers as such.  Two traps set with sunflower seeds and peanuts, and snap… got you!  The company relocates creatures to a farm they rent for the services, but relocations never works when the animal is unfamiliar with its surroundings and has no food storage for winter.  I felt somewhat sad about this ending... that is, until a chew hole where chimney meets roof was discovered, and part of the siding on the chimney corner was pulled loose.

There’s nothing like a Hornet flying amongst the pots of shrubs and herbs on the patio to make one take notice.  I have a healthy fear of them.  Looking up online just confused the matter, as I didn’t know we have a Ground Hornet called ‘The Cicada Killer’.  Ominous name isn’t it… especially for any Cicada nearby.  Now I have no idea which type of hornet I dodged.

The Honeybees are making themselves too much at home with the birdbaths.  I read their preference is dirty water, the filthier the better.  The ones here prefer whatever is available, bird poop dirty or water hose fresh.  They display no pickiness as to a preference.  Walking past the birdbath to turn towards the bird feeder, I usually touch the side to steady myself.  This stirs them up, and six or more disturbed bees make me a bit antsy.  I must admit, I feel safer among the gentle giant Carpenter Bees.

A few days ago, turning around from food preparation at the stove, a tiny black blur hung in front of my nose.  Oh great, yet another tiny spider caught in my hair while rummaging in the garden greenery earlier.  Pushing my glasses up revealed it to be the tiniest jumping spider I have ever met with tiny red whatever those little things are it uses to catch food.  It hung on a silk thread from the overhead light fixture, just dropping in for a meet and greet.  I broke its silk thread and placed it on a saucer for a ride out the front door and onto the porch railing.  It returned the favor with a frown.  I’m sure its plotting some kind of re-entry. 

You might have noticed; I live a very exciting life.  Eat your hearts out, blogging friends.

Just after my last blog post, I was stressing out thinking I was going to lose Lacey from starvation, as she was only drinking the broth from the Tiki Cat Chicken and Broth food… the dried-up chicken part always thrown out.  She only licked food, never chewed food.  The new medication takes weeks to work, so I was desperate to buy time with anything that she might eat by licking up, and that is when Gerber Turkey and Gravy baby food entered the scene and saved the day for now.

Although she lost another pound and feels like skin and bones, she looks better in the face and has started eating a bit of solid food, but as any cat person knows, just because she ate it today doesn't mean she'll eat it again tomorrow.  It’s been a steep learning curve pilling her by hand, as there is no option to say I can’t do it.  The only option is to figure out how I can do it.

I’m worn out and tired, tired, tired.  On the better hand, my neck pain has lessened, and I start back to physical therapy next week.  An epidural in my hip/spine area has lessened the pain in sitting.  Thanks for reading this far in my mini-book.  A few photographs here and there follow… I do enjoy my walk time along the garden paths before those pesky mosquitoes come in for a taste test.  

'Laura' Garden Phlox

Cicada Exoskeleton 

Cicada that died from old age.

It later became dog food when Dustin made his garden rounds.

'Jeana' Garden Phlox aging with unripe Beautyberries behind.

Callicarpa Americana var. lactea

American Beautyberry plant with white berries

Moss on moss

Green Metallic Sweat Bee on flowering wildflower 

(unknown weed, but I like it)

Butterflyweed seed pod

Turtlehead 'Hot Lips' Flowers

Large Flowered Bellwort with drought damage

This is how you know your bird feeder

 was visited by an Opossum during the night.

Twin Spot Skipper Butterfly, maybe.

I think this is a Potter Wasp nest

in our shade umbrella's crank arm.

Maybe a Small Carpenter Bee, of the genus Ceratina.

and not closely related to the more familiar Carpenter Bees.

They make nests in dead wood, stems, or pith, 

and are usually solitary, but some may be subsocial, .

Male Carpenter Bee

on Tall Blazing Star, Liatris aspera

Part of front yard island bed

This Post Is Linked To:

Saturday's Critters

My Corner Of The World