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I managed six pages on the new Frost scene yesterday. Which was pretty darn good considering everything that’s been going on here. I feel like I’m in one of those bad horror movies. You know, the ones where you have the main character try to be reasonable. “We’ve had these spiders here for awhile and nothing bad has happened. I mean we only have to hold out until Monday. On Monday we get help. What could possibly go wrong in less than three days?” Which is about the time the horde of flesh eating spiders come swarming out of the woodwork.
Again, I try to be funny and it just doesn’t feel funny. EEEH! That sound comes complete with full body shiver, and not a good shiver. Thanks to everyone who has written in to let us know that they, too, would be totally freaked. It helps me feel less wimpy.
Though everyone who wrote in stories about brown recluse bites, well, I could have done without some of that. Wow. Thanks for sharing, but wow. Bad stuff.
I have a degree in biology, I’m a big believer in knowledge is better. So I I’ve been reading up on the spiders. I know more than I wanted to know about brown recluse. First, they are tough suckers. They can go six months without food or water. Impressive. We are in the middle of mating season for them. Oh, joy. They do build webs but don’t necessarily spend a lot of time there. They are active hunters. The males hunt for the females, no site said the other way around. Some articles said they prefer carrion; already dead insects. Which is another reason not to let those old fly carcasses hang around. They like cardboard boxes, clothes that haven’t been moved in awhile; in fact any undisturbed and dark place outside or inside. We’re going to have to buy like a gross of large rubber maid containers, and get rid of every box in the house. That’s a lot of boxes.
The females make an egg sac that contains about fifty young per. She can do around five egg sacs a season. We are in the middle of mate and make little spiders season, until the end of July or into August. How quickly the little spiders hatch and grow depends on temperature, weather conditions, and food (though I guess that’s for the spiders on the outside of the sac not inside it.). It can take up to a year for a brown recluse to reach maturity. They are shy and most bites occurr because they’ve been touched, or accidentally squished. Again, check all clothes, shoes, gloves, anything that has been sitting around for awhile. Jon and I are going to get the plastic bags we take on tour to help pack, and put everything inside. Towels, clothes, you name it, it’s going into plastic.
All this reading up on the spiders hasn’t really made me feel any better. I mean it’s nice that they aren’t going to hunt us down and bite us on purpose. I even understand that to the spider biting us is a waste of time. We’re too big to eat, and we probably don’t’ taste like the desiccated carcasses of insects which is yummy to them. I know that biting us is a last resort to protect themselves from being squashed. I understand that, but it makes no difference. I’m still freaked out.
Oh, and on the forum people asking if anyone else got chigger bites at the Wolf Howl, oh yeah. It seems to have hit Jon, Charles, and Richard hardest. Not sure how Darla has fared. I am almost unscathed. I think me sitting in the smoke and ash from the fire kept them off of me. Here I was sort of not liking smelling like wood smoke but after seeing my husband’s legs and all those red spots, well, smoke me, baby, smoke me. The alternative is way too itchy.