Speaking of spiders...

One of my dear friends, Deb, who came to me as a gift from God through Wrigley (a few of you know the story) shares my fear of creepy crustracean-like spiders, (nothing like my sweet spider friend in our toilet closet.) Last summer we had record heat and the night time spiders were out in full force. We had one hanging on a web on our orange tree that still to this day makes my teeth chatter. I had to snap a picture of it to show my friend because this one was the Motherload of all spiders. So one evening when I was feeling rather brave (or after I plowed through a bottle of wine, whichever came first) I ventured outside armed with my camera. Not a good idea. The flash scared the crap outta this guy and he sort of popped off his web for a second and I thought he was jumping out at me. Of course I screamed, dogs barked, Tom yelled, I dropped the camera. You get the idea. But behold, the photo. Luckily it came out because I sure as heck was not about to take another.


This arachnid was soooo hairy and turtle-shelled that it looked as if a crab from the ocean had found it's way inland to our orange tree. Last year Wrigs was just a wee puppy so every night we would walk him back to the side of the house for potty (where these monsters hung from the trees) and we'd have to karate chop our way through the webs, making sure these bastards didn't land on our heads. But more often than not I would scream bloody murder, because I would see a big blur out of the corner of my eye just before I was about to walk face first into the beast. Then I just decided to cover myself under Tom's golf umbrella.

So I shared this picture with Deb and she tells me that she has a similar situation at her house. A big black bumble bee type spider had settled nicely into this zipper like web in her backyard. She was keeping a close eye on this guy to make sure he kept his distance from her and the house. From what I remember I think it was on a dare that she decided to go out and snap the photo. She told me that her hands were shaking when she took the picture but at least she was smart enough to take it in the daylight without the flash. And here was her nightmare...



It could be worse. We could have these guys...

This is an incredible video to watch. It makes you realize that even the creepy crawlies are still God's creation and serve a purpose in this world. Nature rocks.