Spider-Murdering Spider-Murderers!
Helping out a friend in need on a beautiful spring day.
If all we ever talk about is oppression and doom and morally impermissible violations of human consent, then that becomes what defines us. So let’s talk about something nice instead, just for today.
How about…spring?
And spiders.
The weather where I live is really nice…for half the year.
Summer in western New York state is delightful and mild. It rarely gets crazy-hot and humid, and skies are clean and blue with big fluffy clouds. Autumn is crisp and clear and crackles with golden-blue beauty. October is pure magic, and we look forward to our fall drives to random farm stands every year.
Serendipity is always with us on those drives, like when some farmer pulls up and says, “Hey, you want to go feed some baby cows?” and we go into his back-yard and bottle-feed some calves.
Or we find a random ruined fire engine in the woods.
Winter, by contrast, is rather ghastly. It blows a gale several times per week, the skies are formless gray, and we live in the snowiest corridor in the lower 48. Weeks can go by without a glimpse of the sun.
Spring is a crap shoot. Some years, it is glorious. Others, winter hangs around until mid-April. But after a pretty awful winter, this year’s spring is coming along nicely.
Here was the state of things a couple of weeks ago. A little snow remains, but the grass is finally showing for the first time since December.
It seems to make the deer happy enough…
We’ve now had quite a few beautiful days—so many so that I am already ahead on spring cleanup and outdoor preparations for summer. (There are always multiple projects.)
I am 80 percent done with a drainage ditch, for example—one I have been meaning to do for more than 10 years! Here’s a pic from partway through the process:
I changed the water in the hot tub, and that is now reheating. I have managed to pick up most of the remaining leaves from the back. (The snow usually comes too soon to get every last one during the fall.)
Our neighbor’s chickens can be a pain in the neck sometimes, but they make our eggs, and food’s gotta come from somewhere, right?
The crocuses are up, and they had babies! We rescued one from underneath a tree when we moved in 14 years ago. That one has led to all these, and more are still popping up :-)
The gales did a number on some of the cabana curtains of my gazebo, but new ones will be here tomorrow.
But what I really want to tell you about is the spider I met yesterday. His name is Marvin. Actually, he never told me his name, but it's definitely Marvin.
Marvin is a golden jumping spider. I did not get a picture of him, but this is basically what he looked like.
In the course of my spring work, I caused Marvin some problems, and it was up to me to make it right.
I had cleaned off the patio table and six chairs, and it was time to try out the big brown plastic cover I bought on clearance over the winter. So that’s what I did.
Then, as you can see, I got the umbrella from the garage and placed it through the purpose-made hole in the cover. I kept the blue cover on the umbrella, of course—it’s March, so the gales are still going and we could get a sudden 10 inches of snow next week, for all I know.
Marvin must’ve been overwintering inside the umbrella, because he was suddenly there, on the table cover, and I know he didn’t come out of the box with that.
How do I know that? Because the plastic smell of the cover was so toxic that there was no way he would have survived. I barely made it away alive, and we were in the open air!
So there was poor Marvin on this giant, flat, featureless, toxic-smelling plane of doom. It would be like you or on on the ruined plains of Mordor—except flatter, more featureless, and even more foul-smelling. And you could tell that Marvin just didn’t know what to do.
He ran this way and that. He stopped and looked around. He was lost, and I am sure the fumes where getting to him. I had to help.
I went up to him and spoke softly, to let him know that I am a friend. Then I gave him my hand. I was wearing gardening gloves, of course—trust, but verify!—and he understood right away. He climbed aboard, and I brought him a few steps over to the day lilies, and let him off in the newly sprouted greenery.
He was happy. He didn’t exactly thank me, but he was definitely happy. (Jumping spiders are very smart and aware.)
I am not sure what the moral of this story is. Perhaps it is just to point out to spider-murdering spider-murderers like my wife, , , and others that
SPIDERS ARE PEOPLE TOO!
Happy spring :-)
(I can also now take Bitcoin. Thanks!)
I used to have a problem, or I should say Annabelle (Distant relative of Marvin ), her full name Annabelle Steatoda Borealis, had a problem.
She'd often slip into the bathroom sink which was far to smooth for her eight little feet to get a grip on and climb back out. I've developed the habit of leaving a clean washcloth handing over the edge of the sink.
She has relatively poor eyesight but she finds the washcloth and climbs out OK.
No, I am not a spider-murdering spider-murderer. I am judge and jury, I make my husband executioner. There is no way I'm getting close enough to Shelob there to do anything.