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Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/jimstant/public_html/fetchmyflyingmonkeys/wp-content/themes/platformpro/admin/class.options.metapanel.php on line 49 Sometimes I exaggerate, but not this time. | Fetch My Flying Monkeys
Fall is coming. Want to know how I know? Other than the temperature dropping to below 100 degrees this week, I know it’s coming because once again my house has turned into the epicenter of Arachnid Hell on Earth. That’s right, spiders. Satan’s Foot Soldiers. They’re all up in this place and I’m freaking the fuck out. I know you’re probably thinking “Oh Laura for crap’s sake, they’re just wee, little spiders.” and to that I say “Oh yeah? This look like a wee, little spider to you?”
That big motherfucker was in my shower. IN. MY. SHOWER. I screamed and ran, grabbed a camera for documentation, and then literally had to kill it with a baseball bat. Then when I tried to dispose of the carcass by burying it in the backyard next to the dead hookers, because a tissue just wasn’t enough, I saw this:
That giant sonsabitch was 20 times larger than the tub spider, which would make him like the size of, well, twenty elephants. Now, I know something about this here spider. It’s an Orb Spider, like Charlotte was in “Charlotte’s Web”, and like Charlotte, they build elaborate, fancy webs. Legend has it if they learn your name, they will weave it into their web and you’ll die the next day.
Now excuse me while I go pass “Charlotte” a little note.
I’m digging these cooler temps, and the acorns have started falling. By the time they stop, they’ll be about a hundred thousand of ‘em on the Stretchengetti.
I can take some heat, but when it’s over 100 degrees, and the humidity is high 90′s, it feels like fucking Cambodia. It was just plain steamy around here this year. I have a (potted) fern on the Stretchengetti that has grown so much, I don’t think it will fit through the door when fall comes. Damn thing is huge.
OMG… I remember this situation last year. It was HORRIBLE… I swear your current dwelling is located on the top of an ancient spider burial ground. Creepy.
That’s upsetting, but even more upsetting is that T-Rex didn’t save you from the attack of the killer spiders. You might have to cut back on his food and demand he do something more than sit by the pool and catch some sun.
That orb spider is really cool. makes me want to read Charlotte’s Web again. Its been a hundred years since I have even heard reference to that book. Took me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.
Yes, I’ve been bitten before. It necrosed (a fancy word for rotted) a plug about the size of about a half dollar and three inches in. Then the skin granulated in after about 6 to 9 months and the scar looked like I had been shot. It gave me street cred. Ha!
We had an orb weaver blocking access to the hose spigot most of the summer. I left it there, ’cause at least then I knew where it was. Last weekend I noticed it was gone. Uh oh.
In my basement there are several spiderwebs, with bug carcasses lying all around them. So, on the one hand we have spiders, but on the other they eat all the bugs.
If they’re the foot soldiers, then centipedes are Satan’s Calvalry. Especially the long flat fringy ones. HATE HATE HATE those things. Even when you splat them with heavy things, their various bits keep on twitching as if trying to reassemble.
One day I think I may accidentally burn down my house trying to kill one of those bastards.
I love Fall, but it only seems to last about a week here. We had chili and cornbread for dinner last night – thats what the weather was like.
Spiders I hate. HATE. HATE. Why would anyone like them?
Went into a pet store and they have all kinds of things at this particular one – including BIG ASS Tarantulas. There was one in a container that was hiding up in the top corner of his cage. I just knew that if I asked to see it, that the pet people would have opened the container and the damn thing would have jumped out and bit me.
Alas, you will never see a pic on my blog with a big cuddly spider….
Holy shit. That yellow-butted spider, which was clearly as big as twenty elephants, must’ve been on some ginormous jurassic tree with leaves the size of aircraft carriers. Because I KNOW you wouldn’t ever exaggerate.
We have spiders all over the place too. The worst part is, my wife won’t let me kill them. In her culture, spiders are good luck. Can you believe that? So far none in the shower though, so I guess I’m lucky.
When I was a kid, we’d get what my parents referred to as “house spiders” in the basement. I think they were called that because they were the size of a house. The first time I ever saw one I thought I was literally going to die of a heart attack. I flipped on the light and Shelob was hanging out there on the wall. And those bitches were fast and they would try to jump on you. Made the palmetto bugs seem like child’s play.
I bet thats a Wolf Spider!! Those fuckers stand on their rear and jump and run after you!!! We don’t have them here (that I’ve seen) but in Kentucky they ran in packs and would kick your ass just to watch you cry!
I once saw one of those Orb summbitches. Scared the crap outta me! Summbitch had his death trap all spun across a bush and hooked up to the eave. I ran to the garage and grabbed a spray can from my Anti-crawly Things Arsenal. Sprayed that fucker til he shriveled up. Even shriveled he was kinda gi-normous.
You ever seen a Writing Spider? Another bigass arachnid. Does a squiggly thing in his web/death trap. Looks like some kind of code writing. Probably one of those Federally mandated warning signs his lawyer told him to put up and keep his ass out of court and law suits after he pounces on and kills some unsuspecting human. Beat that summbitch to squishiness with a shovel.
The only good thing I ever found about Palmetto bugs was the reaction of out-of-town folks the first time one of those Kamikaze’s from Satan took off and swooped down on the visitor. WTF! doesn’t begin to describe their reaction/fright/horror! Good for a laugh, though.
This weekend I’ll be doing my annual “Spider-and-other-crawlie-shit Preventative Spraying” around my perimeter. No way a body can be too careful.
I run and scream from a Plametto Bug and I’m not an out-of-towner. They disgust me beyond words. It is fun though watching the tourist see a Palmetto Bug for the first time and also watching the reaction of a northerner meeting our fire ants.
The only spiders I let live in the house if I come across them is, we call them jumping spiders…but they’re very small. I’ve never had one jump on me. If you looked down on one, and measured across from leg edge to leg edge, they are only a half inch across. Fuzzy and solid black except for a little blue and green iridescence on the top of their one section body.
When one of the black widows we were keeping in an old glass mayo jar (one at a time) laid an egg sack, I sealed the air holes with tape and took it down to TAMU’s Entomology Dept. thinking maybe they’d want them or let them dispose of them…and the guy took the lid off and set it on his desk ! I kept eyeing it and he casually said “Black widows never leave their web.”
I thought “Ok, buddy, it’s your desk…”
*
Here’s a fascinating book. Part of it is a diary kept by a researcher after deliberately getting a black widow to bite him. If your general health is good, a black widow bite won’t kill you, but You’re Going To Be Afraid You Aren’t Going To Die !
Also fascinating stories about other bugs/critters – tarantula,mantid,rattlesnake and others.
Fun and educational!
“The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators” by Gordon Grice: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Hourglass-Lives-Predators/dp/0385318901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347682403&sr=1-1&keywords=the+red+hourglass
My J. would be outside moving something around and discover a Black Widow underneath. This was when Kraft mayo was in big glass jars. J. would bring it in in a container and we’d put twigs and leaves in the glass jar and put her in it. Not for any enemies,..heh heh.. but very educational. I used a section of solar screen for the top, held on with a rubber band around the neck. J. always named them Matilda but I have no idea why. We kept her in this elevated, big kitchen sink window we have. J. would catch flies and other small bugs on the porch and put a few of them in her jar, alive. Often she would wrap them up and eat them (or whatever) later. We just sprayed a mist of water in the jar a couple of times a week for moisture. I think we had about 5 different Matilda’s. We’re on 5 acres about 3 miles outside city limits.
You people are friggin’ nuts! I go out with my broom and my chihuahua about 1/2 hour before dawn and kill all the black widows I can find. As for them leaving their webs, where did the genius get that information? We had an infestation in our garage and in the fall when my dad opened the garage door (old flip up kind) the hugest black widow I ever saw dropped to the ground and charged him with both of her front feet up. She meant business. Thankfully my dad stomped the crap out of her! The only good black widow is a dead black widow. And as for leaving their web, explain the ones that I find walking down my hallway. There are apparently out of their webs.
The only 2 things I hate about this time of year is the joint pain from weather changes andFUCKING CRICKETS!!!! I never knew they had a smell until I was once IN Arkansas with my family and here in my town in Texas! There is not an inch space between them. They are just getting started. Maybe I will get a pic of now and when they get REAL BAD. The smell…
I kept crickets to feed my chameleon Mel. They do stink something awful. BUT I can touch a cricket, that doesn’t bother me. I used to hold one as my lizard would snatch it from me with his tongue. That being said, I wouldn’t want a swarm on me. I wouldn’t want a swarm of anything on me unless it was a swarm of cloned George Clooneys.
In my old home in Indiana, we lived surrounded by fields. In the fall, the farmers would mow hay and drive every mouse from the field, into my house. The spiders rode in on their backs. I welcome the alligators in Florida compared to things that can sneak up on you or drop from the ceiling into your bra.
Not to denigrate the Palmetto State’s finest and most ferocious arachnids, but one day here on the prairie, I had to take a farking pitchfork to some hairy eight-legged bastard that was taking up an enormous percentage of my front porch.
Damned if I didn’t almost run through an orb spider web while cutting the yard. It must have weighed 20 pounds and was trying to entice the dog into the web.
It took two rounds of triple ought buck and a machete to finish it off. I’ll have to drink scotch the rest of the afternoon to recover.
I’m digging these cooler temps, and the acorns have started falling. By the time they stop, they’ll be about a hundred thousand of ‘em on the Stretchengetti.
I loathe summers here.
I can take some heat, but when it’s over 100 degrees, and the humidity is high 90′s, it feels like fucking Cambodia. It was just plain steamy around here this year. I have a (potted) fern on the Stretchengetti that has grown so much, I don’t think it will fit through the door when fall comes. Damn thing is huge.
Ferns like swamp weather.
I seriously can’t take the humidity.
OMG… I remember this situation last year. It was HORRIBLE… I swear your current dwelling is located on the top of an ancient spider burial ground. Creepy.
This house is Hellmouth.
That’s upsetting, but even more upsetting is that T-Rex didn’t save you from the attack of the killer spiders. You might have to cut back on his food and demand he do something more than sit by the pool and catch some sun.
I’ve been forsaken!!!
That orb spider is really cool. makes me want to read Charlotte’s Web again. Its been a hundred years since I have even heard reference to that book. Took me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.
They are cool from a distance or in a cartoon.
They bite and it hurts.
They spread spider rabies!!!
The, also, leave abscesses from where the rotten meat on their fangs cause infections.
Yes, I’ve been bitten before. It necrosed (a fancy word for rotted) a plug about the size of about a half dollar and three inches in. Then the skin granulated in after about 6 to 9 months and the scar looked like I had been shot. It gave me street cred. Ha!
I did not know any of this, and I wish I still didn’t.
I am here to educate.
I LOL’d all over that! And YES your trauma brings me immense enjoyment.
I KNEW IT!
“Bunch a Bitches” HHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH!
Bunch O’Bitches. That’s what they are.
We had an orb weaver blocking access to the hose spigot most of the summer. I left it there, ’cause at least then I knew where it was. Last weekend I noticed it was gone. Uh oh.
Shit’s about to get real at your house.
In my basement there are several spiderwebs, with bug carcasses lying all around them. So, on the one hand we have spiders, but on the other they eat all the bugs.
There is that and I do hate me some Palmetto Bugs.
That’s what most of the carcasses were!
As Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.”
Ooops! They are potato bug carcasses, not palmetto. And a few millipedes.
The mighty Palmetto has few predators. Maybe wolves and bears could take it on.
OMG! i fucking HATE spiders! too many legs!!! too many eyes! and they’re always lurking! evil bunch o’bitches!
They are Satan’s foot soldiers.
If they’re the foot soldiers, then centipedes are Satan’s Calvalry. Especially the long flat fringy ones. HATE HATE HATE those things. Even when you splat them with heavy things, their various bits keep on twitching as if trying to reassemble.
One day I think I may accidentally burn down my house trying to kill one of those bastards.
Jesus. That just sounds horrifying.
My basement spiders ate a few of those!
Your basement spiders need to train my shower spiders that just want to scare naked people and stare at their junk.
Good Lord When do you get to move out of HellMouth? cus if they are there when you’re showering they are there when your sleeping.. just sayin…
I can’t hear you lalalala!
I don’t know when the new house will ready.
I love Fall, but it only seems to last about a week here. We had chili and cornbread for dinner last night – thats what the weather was like.
Spiders I hate. HATE. HATE. Why would anyone like them?
Went into a pet store and they have all kinds of things at this particular one – including BIG ASS Tarantulas. There was one in a container that was hiding up in the top corner of his cage. I just knew that if I asked to see it, that the pet people would have opened the container and the damn thing would have jumped out and bit me.
Alas, you will never see a pic on my blog with a big cuddly spider….
I could never in a million years purposely touch a tarantula. Or a roach. Seriously, never.
Except the Holiday Spider!
I am getting her ready for Halloween.
Holy shit. That yellow-butted spider, which was clearly as big as twenty elephants, must’ve been on some ginormous jurassic tree with leaves the size of aircraft carriers. Because I KNOW you wouldn’t ever exaggerate.
I mean, being a spider scientist and all.
You are correct on everything. It’s a very big tree. But I only play being a spider scientist on the Internet.
I’ve often wondered about the Bunch O’Bitches. Apparently they don’t read your blog.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
In all honesty, I don’t know if they do or not.
We have spiders all over the place too. The worst part is, my wife won’t let me kill them. In her culture, spiders are good luck. Can you believe that? So far none in the shower though, so I guess I’m lucky.
The shower ones are the worse. They are the pervs of the spider world. They not only want to scare you, but they want too see your junk when they do.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
When I was a kid, we’d get what my parents referred to as “house spiders” in the basement. I think they were called that because they were the size of a house. The first time I ever saw one I thought I was literally going to die of a heart attack. I flipped on the light and Shelob was hanging out there on the wall. And those bitches were fast and they would try to jump on you. Made the palmetto bugs seem like child’s play.
I bet thats a Wolf Spider!! Those fuckers stand on their rear and jump and run after you!!! We don’t have them here (that I’ve seen) but in Kentucky they ran in packs and would kick your ass just to watch you cry!
I think it was a huntsman spider. :::shudders:::
Are you in Australia!? Don’t make me check right now, I’m on a cell phone with bad WIFI!!!
South Florida. Very similar.
There’s Huntsman Spiders in Florida?! * Makes note to never go to Florida again.*
Best breakfast evah:
http://aggiesprite.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/food-blogging-day-three-i-think/
And you need to fumigate. And drink more gin.
Okay, I want a bottle of that.
I once saw one of those Orb summbitches. Scared the crap outta me! Summbitch had his death trap all spun across a bush and hooked up to the eave. I ran to the garage and grabbed a spray can from my Anti-crawly Things Arsenal. Sprayed that fucker til he shriveled up. Even shriveled he was kinda gi-normous.
You ever seen a Writing Spider? Another bigass arachnid. Does a squiggly thing in his web/death trap. Looks like some kind of code writing. Probably one of those Federally mandated warning signs his lawyer told him to put up and keep his ass out of court and law suits after he pounces on and kills some unsuspecting human. Beat that summbitch to squishiness with a shovel.
The only good thing I ever found about Palmetto bugs was the reaction of out-of-town folks the first time one of those Kamikaze’s from Satan took off and swooped down on the visitor. WTF! doesn’t begin to describe their reaction/fright/horror! Good for a laugh, though.
This weekend I’ll be doing my annual “Spider-and-other-crawlie-shit Preventative Spraying” around my perimeter. No way a body can be too careful.
I run and scream from a Plametto Bug and I’m not an out-of-towner. They disgust me beyond words. It is fun though watching the tourist see a Palmetto Bug for the first time and also watching the reaction of a northerner meeting our fire ants.
The only spiders I let live in the house if I come across them is, we call them jumping spiders…but they’re very small. I’ve never had one jump on me. If you looked down on one, and measured across from leg edge to leg edge, they are only a half inch across. Fuzzy and solid black except for a little blue and green iridescence on the top of their one section body.
When one of the black widows we were keeping in an old glass mayo jar (one at a time) laid an egg sack, I sealed the air holes with tape and took it down to TAMU’s Entomology Dept. thinking maybe they’d want them or let them dispose of them…and the guy took the lid off and set it on his desk ! I kept eyeing it and he casually said “Black widows never leave their web.”
I thought “Ok, buddy, it’s your desk…”
*
Here’s a fascinating book. Part of it is a diary kept by a researcher after deliberately getting a black widow to bite him. If your general health is good, a black widow bite won’t kill you, but You’re Going To Be Afraid You Aren’t Going To Die !
Also fascinating stories about other bugs/critters – tarantula,mantid,rattlesnake and others.
Fun and educational!
“The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators” by Gordon Grice:
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Hourglass-Lives-Predators/dp/0385318901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347682403&sr=1-1&keywords=the+red+hourglass
What the hell were you doing keeping a Black Widow in a jar? Was it to use on your enemy later? ‘Cause I could understand that.
I’ll have to check out that book. Thanks!
My J. would be outside moving something around and discover a Black Widow underneath. This was when Kraft mayo was in big glass jars. J. would bring it in in a container and we’d put twigs and leaves in the glass jar and put her in it. Not for any enemies,..heh heh.. but very educational. I used a section of solar screen for the top, held on with a rubber band around the neck. J. always named them Matilda but I have no idea why. We kept her in this elevated, big kitchen sink window we have. J. would catch flies and other small bugs on the porch and put a few of them in her jar, alive. Often she would wrap them up and eat them (or whatever) later. We just sprayed a mist of water in the jar a couple of times a week for moisture. I think we had about 5 different Matilda’s. We’re on 5 acres about 3 miles outside city limits.
You could rent them out. Just sayin’…
You people are friggin’ nuts! I go out with my broom and my chihuahua about 1/2 hour before dawn and kill all the black widows I can find. As for them leaving their webs, where did the genius get that information? We had an infestation in our garage and in the fall when my dad opened the garage door (old flip up kind) the hugest black widow I ever saw dropped to the ground and charged him with both of her front feet up. She meant business. Thankfully my dad stomped the crap out of her! The only good black widow is a dead black widow. And as for leaving their web, explain the ones that I find walking down my hallway. There are apparently out of their webs.
Thanks for the laughs. I’m off to google palmetto bugs.
Take a barf bag with you.
The only 2 things I hate about this time of year is the joint pain from weather changes andFUCKING CRICKETS!!!! I never knew they had a smell until I was once IN Arkansas with my family and here in my town in Texas! There is not an inch space between them. They are just getting started. Maybe I will get a pic of now and when they get REAL BAD. The smell…
I kept crickets to feed my chameleon Mel. They do stink something awful. BUT I can touch a cricket, that doesn’t bother me. I used to hold one as my lizard would snatch it from me with his tongue. That being said, I wouldn’t want a swarm on me. I wouldn’t want a swarm of anything on me unless it was a swarm of cloned George Clooneys.
In my old home in Indiana, we lived surrounded by fields. In the fall, the farmers would mow hay and drive every mouse from the field, into my house. The spiders rode in on their backs. I welcome the alligators in Florida compared to things that can sneak up on you or drop from the ceiling into your bra.
I would rather fight gators than bugs. Fact.
That there argiope spider, the orb dude? Imagine, if you will, walking into the garage back door not realizing that it had set up its loom.
I’m not shitting you.
Jesus. How long did the psychotherapy take to get over that?
Not to denigrate the Palmetto State’s finest and most ferocious arachnids, but one day here on the prairie, I had to take a farking pitchfork to some hairy eight-legged bastard that was taking up an enormous percentage of my front porch.
Said bastard survived past the second stab, too.
Yikes! THAT is scary.
Hmm, so y’all dislike spiders. How do you feel about Mondays & lasagne?
I like lasagne.
Damned if I didn’t almost run through an orb spider web while cutting the yard. It must have weighed 20 pounds and was trying to entice the dog into the web.
It took two rounds of triple ought buck and a machete to finish it off. I’ll have to drink scotch the rest of the afternoon to recover.
If that doesn’t help, try gin.