More Future Spiderlings!

  Every now and again, I find something that sparks the curiosity and gets me pondering about things.  This afternoon while I was watering some peach tree saplings, a rather large white blob floated to the surface of the soil. (Yes, I really soak my plants.)  While I knew it was an egg or egg sac, its full identity was a mystery.  It fully resembled a spider egg sac but most spiders are highly protective of their sacs and are not likely to just abandon them.  Either the egg sacs are suspended in the web or are carried by the mother spider.  This one was under a bit of mulch in the flower pot. The enigma needed solving so I decided to research spider eggs and learn a bit more about our friendly, eight-legged neighbors.

  Most likely, due to the sheer size of the egg sac, this belongs to one of three spiders...a fishing spider, a wolf spider or an garden weaver spider.  All three can be found in the area where the egg sac was found and all three have sacs that are similar to this one.  Usually, the fishing spider and wolf spider carry their sacs with them while the weaving spider suspends hers in a web.  However, it is not unusual for any of the three to hide the egg sac for a bit if they feel threatened.  It is all about the protection of their young.

  The egg sac had floated out from Mama Spider's hiding spot and was now exposed to the world.  The silk case would protect it from the elements but not from predators so I gently layered it between a few bits of dry plant matter and sprinkled a slight bit dirt over the case.  Hopefully, I did as good as Mama at disguising her brood.   We are back on spiderling watch!

Big Mama!

  I think every mother goes through the same thing at some point in their lifetime.  When an exciting tale needs a comparative adjective, invariably, the narrator leans towards "as big as Mom".  Why??? Granted I could stand to lose a few pounds but a lot of moms are tiny!  As big as Mom is the standard comparison for everything from a huge fish that was missed, a long snake hiding in a bush, a black bear ambling down the side of a road or even a bus hauling sixty kids to a field trip. "It was as big as Mom!"  Moms are huge evidently.  My siblings and I did it even though our mom was a mere five foot tall.  My kids did it even when I was nice and slim.  Every kid, everywhere has gushed the words when describing a scene in need of a synonym for gigantic.  "As big as Mom!" has always been a standard of measurement.  It probably always will be.

  Today, the phrase spun around in the brain as Son and I were digging a new garden area.  I needed a place to plant pumpkins and the original garden is jam packed.  The area was already sectioned off since it was a "bog" used during one of the previous clue hunts.  To prepare the site, I raked and son turned the soil.  We had already finished several of the sections so this was just adding extra ground to an existing garden. Son suddenly stopped and knelt down.  He was studying something on the ground.  I pondered a moment then asked what he found so interesting.  "That's one big mama." was all he said.  (At least, he did not utter the "as big as Mama" phrase!)  Curiosity got the best of me, so I joined him.  Once I plopped down to my knees, I came face to face with Big Mama and she was HUGE!  He had uncovered a beautiful wolf spider!

  We stared at Big Mama for a few moments before continuing our work. We were extremely careful not to disturb her any more than necessary as I love having these critters in the garden.  A wolf spider can munch tons of bugs that might eat my plants.  I would much rather have her in the garden than a lot of plant eating critters!  Big Mama is welcome to stay right where she is!

Better Leave Her Be

  Every now and again, I come across something that most folks would smash in a heartbeat.  I do not.  I have learned that it is better to just leave things be than to maltreat them.  Take, for example, the Wolf Spider that, for the time being, was living in a bag of potting soil.  I had no idea that the spider had taken up residence in the bag.  While grabbing a large handful to fill a flower pot, I was alerted to her presence.  An intense wiggling and tickling inside my hand alerted me that I had grabbed more than soil.  I opened my hand to discover the lovely lady. She was gently set in the flower pot and I just worked around her.  The Wolf Spider now resides in the flower pot in the greenhouse.  I think she will be happy there and she can earn her keep by eating lots of bugs.

  While finding a Wolf Spider in my hand is interesting enough, this particular spider intrigued me far more than others.  She was guarding a large egg sac! Each time I added more soil to the pot, she would rear up and threaten my hand.  She was doing a fine job of exposing those huge fangs for my benefit.  "You dare touch my babies and I will eat you for supper!", she seemed to be saying.  Little did she know that I had no intentions of harming her or her babies.  One would think that I would be the first to smash any spiders since I am forever being bitten.  To my way of thinking, while Wolf Spider bites are not fun, they are not as bad as the fear of being bitten.  It is best to just ease away from the spider as Wolf Spiders do not attack unless extremely provoked. Like this one, they will rear back and threaten an attack but usually prefer to scurry back into their nooks.  

  Hopefully, my intrusion did not alarm Mama Spider too much.  She and her little ones can have free rein in the greenhouse and in the garden. Spiders of this sort are a gardeners' friend and should not be killed. Just move away and leave her be.  She will not bother you if you do not bother her.  

My Foul Weather Friend

  The spate of bad weather that has been ravaging the area, continued for most of the day.  High winds pushed the tide high into the yard and water added from flooding rivers made things even worse.  We are fortunate to live on a high hill above the Bayou.  Others are not fairing so well.  But, that said, the high winds do make for many trips down the board path to check the little skiff.  I am glad it is moored well up in the tide pool alongside of the pier.  The outer marsh provides a fine windbreak for the boat.  

  On one of those boat-checking trips, I found that I was not alone. Skipping across the water came a large spider.  To be more specific, it was a Six-spotted Fishing Spider.  While I knew this spider meant me no harm, I was glad that it was on the water and I was on the pier!  That thing was huge! She was close to three inches across!  Once it saw me, the spider froze.  I suppose it was having just as many heebie-jeebies about me as I was it.  I stayed watching the spider as long as the weather permitted but the wind was nigh on knocking me into the water with my friend, Spider.  As I eased myself back up the hillside, I thought about how fun it must be to just pad right across the water as if it were high ground.  It sure would make life easier when I wanted to check some wildflower blooming in the back of the Bayou!

  The Six-spotted Fishing Spider is a member of the Wolf Spider Family. It lives mostly in areas of fresh or brackish water and eats mainly insects.  Occasionally, if the spider is quite large, it can indeed catch small minnows or tadpoles.  You see, this spider not only has the ability to walk on water, it also can dive under water!  The spider can swim down nearly eight inches to catch prey.  It has no problem seeing under water as it has eight eyes!  Wow!  This critter is even more amazing than I first thought!

  While I did not fear the Fishing Spider, I knew not to grab it.  Like any Wolf Spider, it can and will bite if threatened.  Fortunately, the bite is more a nuisance than a major injury.  Still, I did not need to take any chances.  I figured that the spider was already on edge with having its home totally flooded by the high tides.  Friend Spider, you may live in peace as long as you remain in the marsh!

Bad time to get out of the pool!

  The American Green Tree Frog tadpoles have been doing their morphing into froglets this whole week.  Between those and the baby toads, the yard is hopping with wee froglets!  It is impossible to take a single step without having a few underfoot.  Fortunately, they seem to be able to flatten themselves enough that a simple footstep does not harm them.  The shoe has to be twisted into the dirt before they have problems.  My soft, leather moccasins seem to do no damage but, just to be on the safe side, I step lightly. The little froglets climb up on anything handy during this stage of their life.  My waterlilies and water hyacinths seem to be a fine perching point for the change to occur.  At any given time, hundreds of little froggies can be observed in the water plants if you know where to look. The green tree frogs' color gives them the perfect camouflage while on the leaves.  If one did not know that the frogs were climbing onto the plants, they might be passed unseen..at least by humans.

  I watched as the little froglets left the safety of the Frog Pond to climb upon the lily pads.  Mostly, this even went smoothly.  The froglets were able to rest and finish their change from tadpole to full frog in the warm sunshine.  One, however, met with danger right at the beginning!  Poor little froglet chose the wrong water hyacinth as its perch.  It climbed up the first stalk to be met face to face by a wolf spider!  Granted this was a smallish spider but it still would have made a meal of such a tiny frog! The froggy spied the spider and immediately slipped back into the water.  Froggy then chose a different hyacinth to use as his exit spot. Meanwhile, the spider sat quite still as it awaited another meal to make its way onto the hyacinth.  Froggy was safe for the time being.  Once he climbed onto the leaf, he sat still to warm in the sun before making the full exit from the pond.  This path led him up the stalk of a Spiderwort plant onto the wisteria vine.  From there he made his way to the top of the arbor to hide beneath the vines until nightfall.  

  Out of the thousands of baby frogs and toads that exit the Frog Pond, a good many will fall prey to such things as this spider.  Predators are many when you are so tiny but tiny or not, the frogs and toads are predators themselves.  They rid the gardens of myriads of bugs!  Love my froggies!



 

Frenemy! or Lets all dance the Tarantella!

  Frenemy! It is a funny word or more like the mixture of two exact opposite of words.  It is defined as an enemy pretending to be your best friend.  Hmmmm?  Well, I found a frenemy in an unexpected place today.  The replanting of a Pineapple Sage cutting meant I needed a larger flower pot.  A stack of pots was sitting next to the water faucet so I reached down to take the largest one that just happened to be the bottom of the stack of five.  After lifting the four smaller pots, I never even looked in the chosen one.  I assumed it was still just as empty as when I stacked the pots several days ago.  I was wrong.  Deep down under the smaller clay pots sat an eight-legged critter!  Just as I was lifting the potting soil sack to fill the pot, I noticed some beady eyes staring up at me!  Eight long legs and eight beady eyes all rolled up in a hairy body, the Wolf Spider dared me to put my hand down in that container!  It was not having any part of this bit of being buried beneath a gallon or so of dirt!  How humiliating would that be?  So I sat the sack back on the ground and pondered just what to do with my new friend/enemy.

  The Wolf Spider is not one that bothers me a whole lot.  I have dozens upon dozens of them roaming about the gardens.  They can be classified as my friends simply by the number of bugs they eat. They will bite and give you reason enough to be wary from that point forward.  I have been bitten on several occasions purely by accident. I have either grabbed ahold to one while weeding or stepped on one while traipsing about the garden while barefoot.  It is painful..quite painful but not deadly so I try to say that I have learned my lesson. Today, it was easy.  I just needed to empty the spider out of the flower pot and in a more desirable place.  I figured that this one would be far happier near the wood pile!  There it could find lots of bugs and get fat and happy.

  At least my Wolf Spider does not seem to have any dire legends attached to it like one of its cousins.  In Italy, there is a Wolf Spider that is referred to as the Tarantula Spider (not to be confused with a Tarantula!).  Anyway, long ago this Wolf Spider's bite was blamed for the dreaded disease Tarantism.  Part of the remedy was a special dance the Tarantella.  Weird, huh?  Anyway, it turns out that the bite of this Wolf Spider is no more dangerous that the bite of my Wolf Spider...painful but not causing Tarantism.  Tarantism, by the way, is defined as a psychological illness characterized by the extreme impulse to dance....hmmm?  Perhaps my Wolf Spider does cause this!  I sure do a dance occasionally when I find one unexpectedly!

From "Down Under"!

Sometimes there is a large "creep factor" about being on the pier before dawn or after sunset.  It takes a good bit to give me the willies but there are a few of my sisters-in-law and maybe a cousin or two that would have conniptions if they saw the creepy-crawlies that occasionally are on the pier.  They would have especially had the heebie-jeebies with the friend that came to visit the other morning.

Just before dawn, Mark and I were just settling in to some serious fishing when I noticed a critter climbing up from beneath the pier boards.  A nice sized wolf spider cautiously eyed us.  It was not sure that we would keep our distance just like we were hoping he would keep his.  The spider eased its way up between the planks and stared at us with all of its eight eyes!  (I find it interesting that not only does a spider have eight legs but it has eight eyes as well!)  The morning was a tad cool for this critter to be real active.  I imagine that it was seeking sunlight to warm its body before it settled in for the day.  I watched as the spider lifted one leg after another as if he was waving at me!  Awww..I think I found a friend.

It was then that I noticed that the spider was not alone.  Along its back and on several legs there were some red "lumps".  These appeared to be some sort of parasitic egg cases.  The normally predatory spider had become host to some other critter and that would soon hatch and eat the spider alive!  You talk about your zombie attacks!  There was not a thing that the spider could do about the eggs that were embedded in its hide.  Poor critter!  I do wish I could have helped it out a bit by removing those eggs but as soon as I made the slightest move, the spider slipped back under the board.

Its quick, silent movement made me realize that I probably had, at some occasion, been a lot closer to this spider and some of its friends. When the skies are dark, no one knows just what might be crawling up his/her leg! I just hope I have never unintentionally squished one of the spiders that live under the planks.  As long as they keep their distance....

Creepy Crawlies in my Frog Pond!

Yesterday, I spent the morning picking Boysenberries.  While I was walking from the patch to the backdoor, I noticed that a Box Turtle had gotten into the Frog Pond.  This is not extraordinary in the least as they are "pond turtles" but the thing that bothered me is that this turtle had no exit if it wanted to leave.  My Frog Pond is a concrete pond with steep sides.  This makes it extremely easy for a turtle to enter but quite difficult if it wants to depart.  Hmmm..what to do?  I really did not want to wade in amongst the waterlilies and hyacinths to get the critter as I might just find a moccasin in there as well.  My first thought was to lay a piece of driftwood up on the edge with one end down in the water.  This would create a sort of ramp for the turtle to climb.  Simple but effective!  Or not!  The driftwood had been laying out on the ground for several weeks and was dry.  Instead of the one end sinking to the bottom, the whole thing floated!  Now I have a chunk of wood floating freely about the Frog Pond!  Hmm..again!  Next thought was to use the water hose to fill the pond to overfull.  Where the water was spilling over the edge, a turtle could easily crawl to freedom!  So, I laid the hose in the pond and turned on the faucet..and forgot about it!

About three hours later...ooops! THE HOSE!  I rushed outside to turn off the faucet!   Sure enough this technique worked well for the turtle as I saw it striding about the daylilies!  The grass was a bit soggy around back of the Frog Pond but all had ended well!  Then I noticed IT!  A LARGE Wolf Spider (or so I was told) was lounging about on one of the water hyacinths!  This thing was huge!!!!  I sure was glad that I had not attempted that wading expedition to rescue said turtle!  Normally, I have no qualms about having any critters near me but, well, since this thing rivaled an elephant in size, lets just say I would rather it keep its distance!  I watched as the spider did lovely spider-like things which included eating a few of my smaller bugs.  No wonder this lady was so gigantic!  Now I am hopes that this spider does not munch on the dragonfly nymphs as they climb out of the water to change to their airborne counterparts.  It would be most disturbing to think that one lone spider could wipe out my dragonfly population one by one merely by lying in wait for the nymphs to emerge from the safety of the water.  But, then again, I would not want to harm the spider!  I guess the creepy crawlies in the pond will have to fend for themselves! ( I sure do not want to wade about in there to sort out this whole mess!)

Crying Wolf!

There is a wolf in my garden!!! Actually, at any given time, there are most likely many, many in my garden and yard. This fact does not bother me in the least..or so I say. To be truthful, the first time I saw this wolf it gave me the heebie-jeebies! I saw one several weeks ago as I was picking the few remaining green peas and yes, it startled me. It was so huge and had scary eyes! I must admit that I tried to shoo it from the peapatch and wound up killing the rascal in the process. I was upset as I do not like to kill any of the varmints in the yard unless absolutely necessary. Then today, there was another. It looked so much like the first one only a mite larger. Had the wolf''s friend come back to harm me? Was there a pack of them nearby? I have seen their eyes shining in the beam of my flashlight many, many times as I would be outside at night. I was not nearly as frightened this time..once you see one wolf..you pretty much lose any fear. That is one thing about living on a Bayou..there are plenty of critters! This wolf was just one of many and this one meant no harm I am sure. It was just there to catch some unsuspecting prey. The wolf in this case being a Wolf Spider.

The one today, was a nice size specimen..every bit of an inch across not counting the legs! It sat and looked at me as I weeded the green beans. I stared at it.."Don't come any closer now, Mr. Wolf!" I did not want to chase this one from the bean rows for the simple reason that it might protect the young plants from any caterpillars or stinkbugs. (At least, I hope it eats stinkbugs!) The earlier spider had refused to budge when I tried to shoo it from the peapatch. It tried to intimidate me with a show of defiance..it stood its ground. There was a small jar sitting on the gatepost. Aha! I thought perhaps I could trap the spider in the jar and then move it out of my way. I grabbed the jar and slammed it down atop the arachnid! Got him! Now to move it to the other side of the garden. oooops! Uhhh..well, I had him alright. When I slammed the jar down, I sort of missed and smacked poor Mr. Wolf Spider right in two. Sorry! No more spider. I really did feel bad..for a few minutes. But now there is another. I shooed the spider..yay!..this one ran for cover! Perhaps it had witnessed the massacre of a few weeks earlier and decided that it was no match for my super strength! Or perhaps it just had a little sense and took its leave to be on the safe side. Whatever, I was happy to be arachnid-free as I finished weeding the green beans!

Wolf Spiders are quite the fierce-looking arachnids. They can grow to be a sizely creature but are generally mild-natured. By this, I mean, that they usually will not bite unless provoked. If you accidentally smish one..you will receive a nasty bite. The bite is venomous and is dangerous but not lethal. Swelling, severe pain and itching can occur. So be careful! One unique feature of this spider is its eyes. The Wolf Spider has eight eyes arranged in three rows..four small eyes on the bottom row, two large eyes in the middle and two medium size eyes on top. It is these eyes that reflect the beam of a flashlight. Go out after dark, hold a flashlight about level with your eyes and shine it around the yard. The "eyes" looking back at you are most likely those of a spider and even more likely to be those of a Wolf Spider! Egads! They are everywhere! Wolves are in our yards and gardens..they are on our decks and patios..wait..they are even on the sides of the house? Maybe..just maybe they are inside as well? They very well can be..especially during the winter months. They will seek shelter and can be brought inside with houseplants, firewood and stored lawn decorations. Fun stuff there, eh?