Creepy Crawly Spiders, oh my

Creepy Crawlies


It has been a banner year for those icky creepy crawly spiders here, in fact I think I have seen some new ones. Or at least ones that I have not seen often enough before to make an impact on me. I need to make it clear that I Do Not Like spiders, in any way. In fact, I usually scream when I see them. It all comes from a couple of incidents when I was a young child. One was being bitten a spider. The bite swelled up and was extremely itchy. The other incident was actually multiple times, and no I was not bitten. However, we did not have a basement, we had a crawl space under our house. That was where we kept our vegetables such as potatoes, onions, carrots, and the wonderful jams and pickles my mom made. That crawl space was Loaded with spiders, and whenever I had to go get stuff I would cover myself head to toe with clothing. I had nightmares about it for years.

When I was a teenager, about age 19, I was living in a cottage on the north mountain in Nova Scotia. That one summer I remember clearly the cottage was covered in these huge black spiders for a couple of days. The kind of spider that screamed 'taranshula' in my mind. No, they were not, but still. Nasty icky things.

The ones that have made an impact on me this year are not the tiny furry black things, but the huge fat bodied ones that are like a mosaic. Apparently my son was actually feeding a couple in our garage! One of them is so huge now, it's body is the size of a shooter marble! It has now changed colour from the normal black and grey to an almost brilliant orangey yellow shade. That change happened over a couple days. My husband tells me it is due to the fact that she is ready to lay her eggs. I do not know why, but I do know that her colouring is just perfect for Hallowe'en and it is actually quite stunning.

No idea why, but I felt compelled to take some pictures of a few of this type of spider we have around our property. Turns out we have two in the garage, one hanging from the roof of our porch, and two in the front flower beds. I am certain there are lots more I have not seen.

***shiver***