Detritus

Most of my vacation laundry is already done; I've only got two shirts to wash and I'll be ready for next year. Once they've been washed and dried, I'll be done and I can re-pack the suitcase. It's never too early to get ready for next year.

Yesterday ended up being a "yardwork day". Seems we have a group of maple saplings that have taken up residence near the house. Normally, I wouldn't care but these are close enough to damage the foundation. So I spent about three quarters of an hour ripping up trees. It doesn't sound terribly demanding, but it actually is. My legs and arms are still a bit sore.

I also learned a little about our front yard. Namely, that it's a haven for spiders. After pulling up a few saplings, I'd see at least three spiders scurrying about, looking for shelter. Most were pretty small, but some were large enough to be intimidating. I kept my distance from the larger ones. (One particularly larger specimen would fidget nervously every time I came close. Rather than bother it, I gave it some space.)

I don't mind spiders too much, especially out in the wild. In the house it's a different story. But out in the yard, I'm fine with most of them. There's only one species that I don't like: the writing spider.

These were very common in North Carolina. It doesn't look too threatening, until you get close to the web. If you get too close to it, it will sit in the center of the web and bounce rapidly. Instead of a spider's web, it now looks like a trampoline. It's a disturbing sight to a six year old. Even worse was the old wives tale attatched to the creature: If you whispered the name of someone you hated three times to the spider, it would write the victim's name in its web and they would die.

Again, a frightening thing for six year old. Needless to say, I was never fond of that particular species. I may like spiders in general, but I never got over my fear of the writing spider.

Thankfully, we don't seem to have them in Wisconsin...