The Spiders

When I was a girl on the farm I had two brothers that bracketed me age-wish.  They were very active and creative boys.  On more than one occasion I was sucker enough to have been caught by them and tied up with hay string in the calf barn, which was upstairs in the cow stable next to hay mow.  It was a very bad thing which caused lifelong phobias with which I still struggle.  If you know anything about barns in the country, at least the barns on Jigger Hill, you will know that barns are homes of barn spiders.  They are big, fat, ugly, gray things and they move VERY fast in their webs. I was stuck next to them and could not move.  It was so traumatic that I cannot remember how I ever escaped, but, well, I must have because I am now into older age.

Anyway, so I have a great horror of spiders.  Every year or so I try to talk myself into coming to grips with spiders, and other awful things, and begin to look at them as if they are part of God's beautiful creations.  This summer was no different.  Bob moves hornets, moths, and other things, like spiders, if he can back to the outdoors where they belong.  If they are in the house I take a broom to them, if I can bring myself that close.

Well, this summer we had TWO HUGE UGLY SPIDERS on the front porch, just outside the front door.  Outdoors I tell the awful creatures that they can have their space if they let me have mine, so when I looked out the door and found them sitting there, I would make a lot of noise, and stomp my feet on the porch. Well, that is enough to scare anyone and it did it for the spiders.  That being said, we have had a rather symbiotic relationship this summer...I gave them their space and they gave me mine.

About two weeks ago I noticed that I had not seen them for a while.  I was about to ask Bob if he knew anything about the life cycle of spiders to see if they had just died off or if perhaps they were sitting on a nest under the porch getting ready to hatch out a million more of them.  I didn't ask him fearing that he would think I had lost my mind, not a totally unreasonable thought,  but instead asked Robbie.

He had killed them!  No wonder I did not see them anymore.

No...I can hear you ask...Charlotte's Web does not do it for me. I do not think I have been able to get all the way through it even once, even with all these children and grandchildren.

And, no, I don't miss the spiders but I always check to make sure they are not there.

Also,  horror of spiders and claustrophobia are still here.