Tarantulas At The Farm & Other Buggies

This is the tarantula that Martin found in the house when he went to the farm to repair some exterior doors.

I haven't seen any tarantulas since I was a kid. We used to put our feet up on the handle bars of our bikes as we rode past them on the paved road by our house.

My brother and most of the farm boys for that matter used to catch them and keep them as pets. I really hated it when they would bring them to school for Science and Biology. They would hold them in their hands and talk about how gentle they were. I will never know the thrill of holding a tarantula - ever. It just goes against my nature of avoiding anything with eight legs.

This tarantula seemed small, half the size of the ones I remember as a kid. Or did they just seem bigger then?

Martin caught the tarantula in a bucket from the garage that I use for gardening because I had said that there was no way that a tarantula was in the house, that he was just being a sissy and it was just a ground spider. He was throwing quarters at it. When that failed he left to stay at a hotel refusing to sleep in the house. The next morning he came back to the house and decided to catch the tarantula to prove to me that he really saw one.

We arrived the following day and I snapped a shot and set him free. I have never heard of anyone getting bitten by a tarantula even though the boys used to catch them.















We found the largest Praying Mantis I have ever seen while clearing the Horse Weeds from the barn lot. He was four inches long as you can see from the relative size to Angus' back. I wasn't able to get very close as I was afraid he would fly at me and I would crap my pants, drop my camera and probably hurt myself as I fell down trying to get away. But, I did get close enough for this shot.





















Later when I was clearing the weeds away from the lilac bushes behind the little cottage and I found this huge spider. Again, I got as close as I dared to get this shot. I left the spider alone and continued removing weeds and dead branches.

















That's one thing about the country, it's not all zinnias, glasses of wine, and sunsets. There are lots of creepy crawlies. Molly killed two black snakes and one lizard.

Of course, there are wasps and hornets everywhere that you have to be on watch for. I would say that they pose the biggest threat as they can guard their nests fiercely.




















It's just country living. You have to pay attention, and you learn quickly where spiders, wasps and snakes usually hang out and you avoid them if possible. You also wear leather gloves, jeans, long sleeve shirts and boots when clearing brush.

Just another day in paradise.