What's on your mind today?

[Arturo]

A friend of mine got upset with me today and said I'm being passive aggressive towards him. I told him I don't know what he was talking about and he said ok. I think he's upset with me because he is used to having control and I wouldn't give him that. But he doesn't understand that so he gets mad and projects it onto me. But since he cut the conversation short, I'll give him the chance to think about it for awhile and talk to him later. As for now, I am going to bed. Good night everyone.

[Tank]

Ants. Seems the ivy has called in the ground trumps to support the air power in the form of hornets. I'm going to try a massive bombardment of a syrup/borax mix to take them out and go after the rest of the ivy. Fresh stocks of ethyl benzene should deal with the wasps and hornets. Operation Defoliate drags on anoother week...

Don't suppose you have any 'before' pictures to compare with some 'after' pictures later?

[jumbojak]

I'll try to get some once things dry out. Pretty bad storms last night. It's like Anthattan in the yard!

Makes me wonder why ants don't drown in their hills after a heavy rain though?

[xSilverPhinx]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

[No one]

Spiders are your friends, but they won't pick you up at the airport.

[xSilverPhinx]

I let it be, but it's not an animal I would like to be on friendly terms with but rather I would prefer it fear me. That way it would probably keep a healthy distance between it and me.

[Dave]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

1cm? That's a baby, did you leave a zero off?

[Tank]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

1cm? That's a baby, did you leave a zero off?

That's exactly what I thought.

[Velma]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

Get a glass and a piece of paper, trap it, and take it outside.

[OldGit]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.

Shotgun.

[Arturo]

[xSilverPhinx]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

1cm? That's a baby, did you leave a zero off?

Nope, its span must be around that, give or take a few mm (as in milimetres and not metres, I didn't accidentally type 'm' twice) .

When I lived in central-western Brazil many years ago we would occasionally get wild brown caranguejeiras (tarantulas) or bird-eating spiders every now and again in our farmhouse. You end up making checking your shoes before you put them on a habit in such a place. While they are huge and hairy spiders they didn't scare me as much as Black Widows, which are very small in comparison, but way more poisonous. Those you don't see as easily.     

So yeah...large spiders don't frighten me but the small ones do.

[No one]

I believe that spiders are actually venomous.

[Dave]

There's a giant spider with a leg span of around 1cm on my wall.   

1cm? That's a baby, did you leave a zero off?

Nope, its span must be around that, give or take a few mm (as in milimetres and not metres, I didn't accidentally type 'm' twice) .

When I lived in central-western Brazil many years ago we would occasionally get wild brown caranguejeiras (tarantulas) or bird-eating spiders every now and again in our farmhouse. You end up making checking your shoes before you put them on a habit in such a place. While they are huge and hairy spiders they didn't scare me as much as Black Widows, which are very small in comparison, but way more poisonous. Those you don't see as easily.     

So yeah...large spiders don't frighten me but the small ones do.

But, "giant"? 1cm? 10mm? 0.01m?

Strangely I understand what you say, though I must admit to disliking 99.9% of the arachnid species some, like the little hunting spiders (maybe 5mm or less, black and white speckles, though some tropical ones are like little peacocks) I find fascinating as they skitter about very fast.

Its the big momma "house spiders"  that used to bother me. Maybe up to 25mm legspan, they are also hunters and "hear" through their legs. So, when you move your foot to get up and find the glass and postcard they "hear" the vibration, work out the direction spin and sometimes run towards you! One night I had five trapped under glass waiting to be evicted, bloody swarm of them!

Many years ago I lived in a bedsit above a shop. On the floor below was a woman I really fancied. 1am one morning, gentle tap on the door awoke me. It was my gorgeous neighbour in a dressing gown... " 'Allo, me luck's in," thought I!

But no such luck, she had been staring, terrified, at a huge momma house spider, in her room,for three hours before getting the courage to seek help.  I astounded myself, I just grabbed the beastie in my hand, gently, took it down stairs and deposited it in a hedge.

Marvelous what the need of a little chivalry to a female will do to drive male courage to new heights! Thus is the legend of St Gloucester and the Spider, another damsel saved from distress...

[Icarus]

Brave lad our Gloucester. 

We have a plenty of arachnids and assorted other creepy crawlies here in Florida. We do have the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse both of which are venomous. The Black widow is not aggressive unless you try to pet her. The Brown Recluse is seldom seen because he is sure enough a recluse. He has been known to take up residence in shoes that have not been in use for a long while.  His bite though venomous is not deadly. It  makes a boo boo that refuses to heal. Necrosis.

Spiders in general are useful. Their diet is largely insects. It is not unusual to have a spondulix  capture and partly consume a cockroach.  We have lots of little lizards that are semi chamelion. Adults are about 16 cm long. There are dozens of them who play around my screened porch. They are good little dudes because they too capture and gobble down insects including roaches. I do not harm either spiders or lizards. They are only trying to make a living. 

We have some Komodo dragons that are not so benign. Happily they are mostly confined to certain areas of the state.  Our most unwelcome imported creature is the Python. Some of them grow to 5.5 meters in length and might weigh 90 kilograms.  There are thousands of them living almost exclusively in our unpopulated Everglades. There is a bounty of $50 on them but they are most difficult to track down and not easy to kill. Pythons are hungry and they will attack and swallow a smaller sized, maybe 5 foot, alligator. In addition, the 50 dollar bounty is not enough to make it practical to wade around in the swamp and then try to haul a 150 to 200 pound snake many miles to the wildlife station for the reward.