Saturday, October 3, 2009

I Love Spiders

I haven't aways loved spiders, although as a kid I did. I loved the way they moved. They are almost magical, so quick. For some reason their pointy legs freak us out. And their ability to be non existent, then hanging right in front of our faces, that freaks us out too.

When I was in high school, I made a giant life-like clay tick, a member of the arachnid family. That tick won me the art award for the second year in a row. It creeped a lot of people out, with the pointy legs, full of texture you could never see if you looked at a life sized tick.

We kept that tick in our home, our kitchen actually. But then I started to get freaked out by spiders, as they would pop up on me from no where. That did not mesh with my maternal protective instinct.

Now, they mesh with my maternal protective instinct. Why? They eat flies. In the summer we get flies. We get flies because we leave our door wide open. We leave our door open because all of our windows are on one side of the apartment, the door is on the other, so it creates a breeze. I am also an avid crock pot user, and the flies seem to want my chicken. They also are fond of the diaper pail.

That's where the spiders come in. We have big spiders and small spiders. I like the teeny spiders best. I love seeing a teeny spider with a fly. It eats the fly, and you feel like the underdog is winning, even though you know that spider is going to be taking out lots of flies over the course of its lifetime.

I love nesting, and as my due date approaches, I'm cleaning and scrubbing more and more vigorously, parts of the apartment I have never cared about before, like the interior walls of cabinets. When I see a spider, I carefully clean out the web, because my maternal nesting instinct won't allow it to remain, and make sure the spider doesn't get caught in my feather duster, because my maternal protective instinct won't allow anything to happen to it.


Do spiders save money?

If you're patient enough for the spider population to overtake the fly or ant or whatever bug population you may have, they could save you money. I wasn't that patient. Over the summer, I combined spiders with fly strips, but as winter approaches, they don't need any assistance. You can also find all sorts of do it yourself pest control ideas, depending on your pest. In conjunction with other methods of pest control, support your local ecology; let the spiders live.

15 comments:

Captain Cleavage said...

lol I am fine with spiders as long as they stay off of me and don't bite. unfortunantly we have a lot of black widow and brown recluse and banana where we live and my maternal instinct will kill them if they are in the house.

Anonymous said...

THIS is the only post of yours I've read that makes me think you might actually be crazy, lol!!!

::shudders::

Spiders give me the willies!

Treva said...

Nope. Sorry. HUGE arachnophobia. HUGE. Panic attacks, sweats, chills, screaming. No thank you. I love October b/c it's Halloween time, the leaves change colors and my birthday, but I hate that every time I turn around I'm freakin' out of some 8-legged freak in my house.

Jen said...

I LOVE spiders, and I agree 100%!! I never kill spiders. When I come upon them while cleaning, I relocate them outside or to the basement.

We have had some flies this summer, and I hope you're right, that maybe the spiders can take them all out over the winter! Now flies... I CANNOT stand!

Rachel said...

I don't kill spiders either. I can understand being scared of them, I am scared of snakes. But i don't understand why people kill spiders just because they can. They eat other bugs. The only ones we have killed are the black widows we have seen in our garage lately.

Jessica said...

I have to agree with Athiest Mama.

We actually had a spider in our family room this morning and I screamed like a little girl until my husband came in and killed it.

I'd rather live like Pigpen with a swarm of flies around me then deal with spiders!!

Blessed said...

I am torn. I don't mind the cute little spiders or the delicate daddy-long-legs types that keep to themselves up in the high places and go into a frenzy if I disturb them--who could be afraid of those? But some spider occassionally goes to town on us in our sleep--her I don't like. So I compromise and leave the high place spiders and vacuum up anything lingering in the lower cracks and crevices, esp. around the beds.

But the HUGE wolf spider that is exactly like your first image that I found on the ceiling of the kids' closet--he was truly scary. And there is a brown bulbous one living down by my dryer under our house that we affectionately call Shelob. She is scary, but i let her live, as she is not in the house proper and shows me proper deference by scurrying into her hiding place when I get too near.

But we don't have problems with ants or flies and they are getting some of the moths I have trouble with this year, so I call those spiders our "first line of defense." I tell myself their webs are adding to the structural integrity of our single-board home, and insulating to boot! ; )

Pam said...

When we lived on Guam, there were LOTS of spiders. We left the ones inside along because they took care of the ants. There would be a big pile of ant carcasses on the floor under the web, and I would just come along and vac the pile each day! Occasionally, we would see a big (hand-size) wolf spider. Those things are fast and creepy!!!

Anonymous said...

I have a couple of random thoughts. While I know you don't enjoy random comments there is no other place to post them. I was first wondering why you haven't mentioned my previous question to you regarding saving plans for retirement. I am not sure if you are planning a seperate post for this topic, but a heads up wouild be nice.
Also, while I think its was in your best interest to modify comments because some people are just flat out unkind, I do suggest that you should still post comments that may be off topic, it would probably avoid mutliple comments on the same subject.

Emily said...

Thusa, I have already addressed retirement in several posts. I said we are not saving for retirement, as my husband wants to be a pastor and says servants of God don't retire. I agree. Also, a huge part of our "retirement plans" is becoming more sustainable so that we are partially financially independent and can live on a lower income. It is not a traditional retirement plan, but it is ours.

As far as off topic comments, I also added a FAQ, where off topic questions are welcome.

Devon said...

I'm not a huge spider fan, but I do appreciate the dirty work they do for us. I read something the other day that said 95% of house spiders wouldn't survive outside, so we're not doing them any favors if we put them out. So I will *usually* just let them be, unless I can tell they are not a house spider. Last Halloween we had a HUGE garden spider outside our house who would weave a web at night and pack up in the morning. I never got rid of him, as he was no doubt getting the big bugs.

KK said...

They still creep me out!

Jen said...

I totally agree with not killing the spiders. I do, however, relocate them. Spider bites are not fun at all and take a long time to heal. Even the non-poisonous spiders can bite. Just something to consider.

Anonymous said...

Emily,
I have a book suggestion that your children might like "Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham"
p

KimC said...

Blessed mentioned a spider she calls Shelob.
We live in south Texas and found a tarantula on our property a few years ago. She joined our household and has been known as Shelob ever since. My daughter holds her and - ugh - loves her. The rest of us like to watch her with somethig akin to quiet horror.
I have to admit, though, that she's so big and hairy she really seems more like a small mammal than a huge arachnid. The more we watch her, the less creepy she becomes.

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