buggy

Just be(e)

I found the closeup on my camera finally! I mean the real closeup that lets you take picture of bees and spiders and such. I wish I had found it earlier in the day because I saw a spider yesterday that I have never seen before. She was a huge black spider about the size of the Orb Weavers in October (Banded Garden Spiders, etc) but she was not an orb weaver. She was more along the lines of a tarantula, but of course, not nearly as large. Still, she was large enough that when I typed in "giant black spider in Pacific Northwest" I found her and there was no mistake about it. She turned out to be a Female Mouse Spider and she was about 1/2" in her body with her legs making he seem much larger. I have to say that the warnings about her (or really the male's) potential bite actually gave me pause. They are not aggressive spiders and will not chase you but the male has a nasty bite if provoked and I assumed the female could be provoked as well. I could just imagine our cat Magoo going out and chasing her around, that is how big she was.

I actually saw her stuck in another spider's web and I went and got a large stick (because even I did not want her crawling on me) and freed her from the web before the other spider could wrap her up. Then I used my knitting scissors! to cut the very strong web that was on one of her legs to free her so she could run away. Then I went in to look her up and then I was little um nervous about her being out on the porch. But I have lived near black widows (in San Rafael) and brown recluses (in Kansas City) and of course the aggressive house spider in both San Rafael and here (I just saw one in our bath tub recently and one out on the patio) and I think the thing that made me pause about this spider in particular was that she was so BIG and BLACK and really just so substantial walking around out there. I left her alone and when we came back from the upick she was gone- off to burrow or hunt or lay eggs, whatever a female Mouse Spider does on a fine autumn day.