Thursday, July 15, 2010

Hungry?

Garden spiders are welcome here. As long as they stay outdoors and don't try to venture in the house!*

Not sure what kind of bug it's eating, but it's one less bug in the garden!

I love how I can see the details of it's face! Green "teeth"!
Would you believe the camera I used is a point and click?
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*Funny story-- When we lived at the old house, there were these huge wolf spiders in the house. They freaked me out. I hated that they grew so big and were jumpers and it didn't help that they were mostly in the scary basement that gave me the chills to go down at night. Our basement was the kind of place where when you were at the bottom step, you ran as fast as you could to the top before something grabbed your ankles and pulled you down. Seriously, the basement was scary. When the light got turned off while I was still down there, I'd scream. Anyway, at night when Andrew was at work, I'd go down to do laundry and a wolf spider would be down there at the bottom of the steps, I don't like to kill spiders, especially freaky large ones that make a popping feel when you smoosh them, I might not be able to hear the squish but I can feel it-- *shiver*! So I'd grab whatever was handy, a cup, a jar, a vase and catch it inside. Then when Andrew came home from work, he had to go around and dispose of all the spiders inside the overturned cups. I'd catch camel crickets too and those are just gross. There were a few times when there was nothing under there, and I'd imagine the spider lifting the jar to make his escape.
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Living here at this house, the basement isn't scary at all. It's unfinished, and spiders everywhere, but I'm cool with it. The old house always felt like there was someone watching you and I never liked being alone at night there. Might even have been haunted, there were plenty of unexplained happenings at the old house: lights coming on, stove turning on, noises, smells in the house. Andrew even woke up one night with a heavy weight on his chest and he couldn't get up no matter how hard he tried. After a few minutes, he was able to get up. Scary! The house was built on land where the Civil War was fought, and on the property next to us was a falling-down house and a cemetery that was supposed to be for the slaves. The lovely old house in back of us was taken over and used as a military hospital for both sides. Might explain the weird happenings at our house. Beautiful area, but creepy just the same. Can't tell you how many times the hair on the back of my neck stood up when we lived there.
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I don't miss the old house one bit! The spiders there can keep it!

4 comments:

Christina said...

Runs and hides....I ekkkkkkkk...need I say more! And I have no idea where my kids get there unrational fear of all things creepy crawly.

BTW do you have a good strawberry jam jelly recipe? mine are ripe and I am attempting canning.

jenny said...

Christina-- LOL!! My kids like to yell "spider, spider!!" when they see one and then Andrew or I come running to get it!

Here's the recipe I use for strawberry jam:

2 quarts strawberries-- cleaned, stems removed and crushed (I use a potato masher to crush them);
1/4 cup lemon juice;
1 package powdered pectin;
7 cups sugar

Combine crushed strawberries, lemon juice and powdered pectin in a large pot, bring to a boil, stirring stirring stirring. Add entire amount of sugar and stir some more until boiling (this takes about 10 minutes). Let it boil hard for a minute then remove from heat and ladle into hot jars with 1/4 inch headspace. process 10 minutes in a hot water canner.

Makes about 8 half pints.

Good luck!! :o)

Johnna Sutton said...

Great pictures!

Gringa-n-Mexico said...

LOL I love this post! :D So... I'm not the only one that get's wonky feelings in basements?? Cool. And EEK! We've totally got some wolf spiders here - and HOW IS IT that they can be so huge and run so FAST??? PUNKS! I too cannot kill a big one - I totally get you, but to save my baby *ahem* I'll at least take OFF my shoe and try to smack at it - but the damn things are too quick! Give me a tarantula any day - they're slow!