It is no doubt a good thing we live tucked away in Barview and have few permanent neighbors. Most of the homes surrounding us are weekend retreats, so we have a lot of privacy most of the year. I say this is a good thing because if my neighbors could see me out after dark, in my “house pants”, collecting and disposing of slugs, they would no doubt think I was a tad loopy.
If they could see me coming out of my house any morning in October, they would be removed of any doubt to my sanity as I wave my arms madly about my head. No, I am not conjuring up spirits or hailing a taxi. I am trying to protect my face and hair from the abundant spider webs that are woven across my doorway. In truth, it is not only across the doorway, but from shrub to shrub all through the gardens, and across the entry arbor as well. In fact, it is hard for me to work in the gardens in the fall because of these webs.
It must take my spiders all night to do such intricate designs, and then I come along and swish them away with a sweep of the hand, albeit an artistic sweep. But there is something unsettling about walking into an invisible web, knowing as I do there is a spider somewhere near ready to pounce. I know I am too large for her dinner, but I also don’t relish the thought of her biting me just to be sure I’m not tasty. Even if the web is empty, the sensation of having my face wrapped in silk unnerves me.
I generally don’t mind spiders, as I count them as garden helpers. Kind of like garter snakes and soldier beetles. But I wish they weren’t quite so ambitious when they weave their webs. I try to realize Mom Spider is just trying to get enough sustenance to lay her eggs before the weather turns cold. I am sympathetic to all mothers (except Mother Slug). Those eggs will hatch in the spring and help me to control less desirable insects.
And it used to be when I encountered spiders inside the house, I would gently try to move them to the garden. That changed a few years ago when I was doing research about the arachnids for my "Gardening Matters" column. It was then I learned that the indoor spiders would not survive outdoors, which made me feel guilty about all the ones I had condemned to freezing.
It is, however, those big, decoratively patterned garden spiders that I take issue with. Okay, I will admit to more than taking issue with them; they creep me out. In the first place, I have measured some of them at almost an inch in length, which is much too big for my comfort zone. If I analyze my concern, I guess I am afraid they will crawl down my back or up my pant leg. But I don’t really know if they do that sort of thing. Aren’t they supposed to be more afraid of me than I am of them?
The other day I was working in the garden, minding my own business and staying well away from a an intricate – and very lovely - web. But I must have been annoying the Lady of the House, as she came quite quickly from the center of her web to look me in the eye. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was giving me “The Stink Eye.” My mother raised no fools, so I backed slowly away, quickly gathered my tools, waved my arms around my head a couple of times on my way out to the path, and retreated to the relative safety of the patio. I am not proud of being such a coward, but I also did not want to kill her just so I could get some weeding done.
I will continue to try to weed the garden until the weather gets too cold and rainy. It gives me a head start when spring comes. But I am not saying I won’t give up when chased again. I wonder, though, if it is possible to introduce spiders to the delicacies of escargot. I might be a little more tolerant if my spiders would earn their keep and take care of the slug problem.
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