Said the Spider to the Fly

(This picture does not do her justice, as to her size; she is actually about 3 times bigger than this picture of her, in reality.)Well, it was on the news today; another person has died as a result of being bitten by a mosquito carrying the West Nile disease. It was the lead story. Not a most pleasant topic to fix one's mind on first thing in the morning. Bugs. Louisiana has plenty of them. Not all of them are pests, tho. When I first moved to South Louisiana, I noticed that the mosquitos were more clever and sneakier than their slower, but still pesky, cousins to the North. In New York State when you want a 'skeeter' dead, you just reach around and swat it. It stays there 'til you do. Not so down South. If you can't reach the varmit in a nano-second it will perform some of the most incredible flying escape acrobatics imaginable. Scientists say that UFO's cannot exist because they defy the law of physics; primarily astrodynamics. You just can't be going full speed in one direction, turn a sharp 90 degree turn, then drop down at another 90 angle, all the while increasing speed. I don't know how UFO's navigate, but these mosquitos have them beat. And sometimes I swear they can wear 'cloaking devices'. This last couple of days there've been a couple in the house that I just couldn't get. Dang it. The other night while I was watching television, a curious thing happened. Were my eyes deceiving me? On the end of the coffee table sits a little plant. Somehow a small spider had been busily building a fancy web that was strung from the plant to the edge of the television. When I watch television at night, I usually have all the lights off and notice that those darned mosquitos keep buzzing around the light of the screen, but I can never get them. Hmmm. Apparently this industrious little spider had taken note of the fact and decided to set up shop there. Now I was more interested in what was going on in front of the television, rather than what was on it. I let the little fellow finish his fancy little web, then watched as he walked to the center of it, curled up into an inconspicuous-looking little 'ball', and sat there 'hidden' in plain sight. His trap was set. I don't know who was more excited about the prospect of him catching one of those miserable mosquitos. I almost looked forward to watching one land in his net and begin screaming, like they loudly do in my ear when I'm trying to sleep. I wanted to see that mosquito flail around yelling his little head off while I clapped and said, " Yah! That's what you get for biting my face when I'm alseep. That's for parading around in front of the tv like a wise guy while you eye us up, the dogs and me, looking for the best landing approach. We GOTCHA!" I fell asleep on the couch waiting. The next day I was outside hanging out the laundry, with pretty colorful dragon flies flitting around. Cappy had told me early on not to be afraid of them because they grow so huge down here. He said folks around here refer to them as "Mosquito Hawks". I kept calling them mosquito 'jets' for a long time. I got so I loved watching how they would come around, sit on my clothesline, fold their front little 'paws' together, turn their little heads almost as though they were looking directly at me as if to ask, "...You got any skeeters for me?" One time while I was trying to plant something, a particular mosquito kept pestering me. Suddenly a dragon fly flew right in front of me and whisked away the offending blood-sucker. Well, that touched my heart. They've been my buddies ever since.
While I was hanging the laundry yesterday, the lawn was still kind of wet from recent rains. All at once I felt the now familiar 'sting' of a fire ant on my bare foot. Oh no! I looked down and saw that there was only one on my ankle. They usually work as a team, letting the whole village sneak onto a person's legs before the 'mayor' yells "NOW! Everybody bite NOW!!" But this time there was only one, but I could see more looking around for my flip flops. I musta looked pretty stupid dancing and hopping around while I was hanging the rest of the clothes, trying to avoid anymore scavanging passengers. This morning, bright and cheery, I went out to fetch my fresh smelling laundry, but at the last second checked to see if I could see any of those danged ants spoiling for another go-round. Nope, not today. Gorgeous out today, too. Bright blue sky, no clouds. I decided to go to the far end of the clothesline and work my way in, so I breezed that way. All at once somebody was screaming and flailing. It was me. I had walked into a giant spider web, made by a non-poisonous Banana Spider. It was made with thick shiny 'silk' threads. There was an huge butterfly encased cacoon-like in there with me. The butterfly had given up, but I didn't. The spider's body was literally 4" long and that didn't include it's long legs. I thought she had me for sure! I was shrieking and jumping, and waving my arms all over. The sticky,thick web was in my hair, all over my clothes and laundry. In all my commotion I must have knocked her out, cuz there she lay in the grass on her back. I yelled at her, "Don't you ever do that again!" I hoped she wasn't dead. She wasn't; I had gone back out later to fetch the remainder of laundry and saw that she was gone, banished back to the banana patch. She left her butterfly there, tho. Too bad she had gotten greedy. She had seen me I guess, and like any good Cajun spidey, she just wanted to live off the fat of the land.

Could Ya TRY Not to Get Creeped Out By These Very NICE Banana Spiders?

When we see the first banana spider we know Fall can't be far behind. (These are not to be confused with the Wandering Banana spider indigenous to Brazil, which is poisonous) Another name for these huge 'ladies' is the Golden Orb Weaver.
  This one took up residence under the patio underhang, not far from where the doves had raised their small family last month. What an intricate and fancy web she's got going for her this year. Looks like she's got it on zigzag.

She's apparently camera shy, and scurried to hide, but I caught this nice shot of her, below, as she hurried away.

She usually stays parked in the middle of the web unless we scare her by walking too close to her setup. She seems to be making a good living up there. 

She's rather small by comparison to our other banana spider standards. She looks to only be about the size of the palm of my hand.  As Fall approaches, there will probably be several of them setting up shop in various spots around our yard.  We try not to bother them unless they block a path.  They are great at catching skeeters and we appreciate that, as well as their beauty.  (It took Peg awhile to be able to look at them as one of God's creatures, and it helped that they ate a ton of mosquitoes.)

   As more show up, I will try to get some pictures of their webs covered with morning dew shining like glittering strands of tiny jewels sparkling in the morning sun.  

Sadly, these wonderful creatures have become the bane of Fall hunters as they walk through the woods, hunting.  Imagine creeping through the woods, concentrating on the tops of trees for elusive squirrels, or looking down, eyes darting behind bushes or shrubs for prey and walking face first into one of these huge spiders, whose web is exactly nose high.

Here, below, is a link to a couple of stories where Peg thought one 'got her', and only because of these dreaded South Louisiana mosquitoes, has she finally come to terms with the realization that, a lot of the bigger bugs are really on her side (NOT Literally!!) after all. 

http://cappyandpegody.blogspot.com/search?q=spider

SEW WHAT??

My younger brother and I were told, with authority, by a learned 8 year old that these were called "Sew-er Needle Bugs". "If it hears anybody swearing...saying really bad words, it'll sew your lips together!!" It was the biggest bug I'd ever seen in all my 8 years, and it looked big enough to do it! A group of us kids had been meandering along an old dried-up creekbed one sunny Summer afternoon, when this huge, colorful blue insect flew up along side us.  I screamed and ran all the way home, occasionally stealing a look behind me, making sure it wasn't following me, and trying to think if I'd said any bad words lately. I was a tomboy by nature, so it wouldn't surprise me if I had just to prove to the other 'guys' that I was just as tough as they were. Heck, on occasion, if one of them was beating up on my brother, I'd  have to step in and 'rassle 'em'. I could spit farther than most of 'em and could outrun any of 'em. I outran the "Sew-er Needle Bug" that day, too. I got inside the house, slammed the door and locked it, then spent most of the next half an hour looking out all the windows of the house to see if my brother could make it home, too. I sure hoped he didn't come home with his lips sew'd together. When he got home later, he was fine. And we never did hear about any kids actually getting their lips sewn shut, but it was a good idea not to ever swear again, just in case.
 When I got grown up and had kids of my own, for the heck of it one boring Summer afternoon, on a hike with them, along comes another gorgeous dragonfly, so I tried 'pulling' the old "Sew-er Needle Bug" theory on them, but they were much too sophisticated to fall for it. Well, there went all that fun.
For the rest of the time I spent in western NY...years and years and years, thereafter, I never paid much attention to dragonflies.
When I first moved down here to South Louisiana, I noticed them...a lot. It seemed they were everywhere in our yard. Cappy said, "Down here they call them Mosquito Hawks", because they feast on mosquitoes. I started to notice how they'd come round anytime I was working outside. If I was hanging laundry, they'd come sit on the clothesline and watch me. If the line would jump, they'd fly off, then come back and sit on the line some more. 
Now, up in New York State, everything seems to have to be done quickly, no matter what it is. One of the first things Cappy got me to do down here in the South was to "get my mosey on", to slow down, take time to really look around and study the beautiful things of God's nature. And there sure is plenty. So, while I was at it, I studied how the insects behaved, since they seemed to be everywhere.  I got to really enjoy watching these dragonflies, which are truly beautiful. Some are shiney, almost florescent green or blue, or even gold. I noticed that their little heads moved this way and that, as they looked around. One day I was working in the flowerbed, all hot and sweaty when this darned mosquito kept pestering me,  strafing my face, trying to hone in on a good landing spot to drill. What a pest!  Zzzzzz.....Zzzzzz.....Zzzzzz. Suddenly a dragonfly flew in from over my right shoulder, stopped in front of my face, then darted off again to the left. The offending mosquito was GONE...the "mosquito hawk" had come and gotten it! He really did! Just then Cappy called and I said all excited, "The mosquito jet came and took off with a mosquite...really!!!"  He said, "Uh...mosquito hawk, not jet".  Doesn't matter. Even after all these years, if I get excited, I still call them 'mosquito jets', much to Cappy's chagrin.
If I'm working on flowerbeds or anything outside, they'll come and sit in front of me, fold their little arms (paws...whatever), look up at me and "ask", "Do you got any skeeters for me?" (Well, I know by now, that you must think I'm strange from things you've read in this blog in the past) .....so I answer the little guy, "Nope, I gots no skeeters right now", but then I go and rustle the plants growing by the back door, where the danged mosquitoes hide. An angry cloud of 'em emerge to find a "mosquito jet/hawk" darting around in pursuit. I just love when that happens. And you might remember from way back in the depths of the blog, when a couple of very large banana spiders had set up shop on our patio. They were actually fun to watch for the month I let them be there. Hey, ya don't find banana spiders in western NY State, Cappy's out on the boat for long periods of time, I'm trying to observe nature, so I watched 'em live their lives right in the middle of my world. I don't know the longevity of banana spiders, but they were around for a month or so and built an quite an elaborate web. One day they thought they'd hit the lottery. Instead of just feeding on the same ol' mosquitoes in the plants, they actually caught one of my buddies, a dragonfly. They were high-fivin' each other and dancing all over their large web, congratulating each other. Nooooo.....I grabbed something, anything and flung the dragonfly out and across onto the lawn. The banana spiders were horrified and yelled, "WTDF??!!".... (Where's The Dragon Fly ;-)  I tried getting the "skeeto jet" to sit on the clothesline and know that he was free to go...but he couldn't sit up. He seemed paralyzed. Uh oh. Cappy told me that spider webs contain some kind of natural anesthetic. Helpless, I just had to let him sit on a leaf and see if he'd recover on his own. He may have. When I went back later, he was gone. Maybe a bird got him. I dunno. But the next day, the banana spider who had caught him in his web, died. Seriously. Probably from a broken heart. Then three days later the other, bigger banana spider...maybe it's mate, died. I had interferred with nature and felt terrible about it. Well, Cappy sez, "Ya got a soft heart, Peg, and a great imagination the way you read things into things". Ya, I guess I do.
    Last week Cappy and I went out fishing in one of the bayous near our town. We didn't take the dawgs because our boat's bimini top had blown apart in a windstorm, so there was no shelter from the scorching sun. It was in the 90's. They couldn't have taken it. I couldn't take it. While Cappy, who is so used to the sun and heat, sat blythly fishing away, I found in my huge ziplock bag that I take on our fishing trips a brand new kinda rickety bright purple umbrella ... which the sun blazed right through, so I took my dark red bed sheet (that I wrap around myself as a "modesty cloaking device" if I have to sit on a 5 gal. "potty" bucket way out in the wild)... and draped it over the back seat which was above me, then over the top of my umbrella. It kept falling apart, but when it did stay put, the hot stagnant air got stuck under there with me. I was miserable. I kept thinking, (like Jim Carrey says in the movie, "Dumb and Dumber"), "Find my happy place, find my happy place". So I tried staying calm and tried finding things to make me forget about how wretchedly miserable the situation was. Presently I noticed dragonflies coming to "visit". There were a couple. One came by who was shiney lime green. He made me laugh out loud. I think their heads make them look like little old-fashioned motorcycle guys, who only used to wear black goggles and no helmet. The bottom of his face was all rounded out and was the same color as the rest of him. He came and sat down on the boat right by me, turned his head to look off at something and I noticed that he was eating something. He looked like a little old man gumming something with his jaw moving up and down...and wearing those little black goggles, then he looked back up at me and sat there just watching me. Another dragonfly whizzed into the 'scene', and immediately, the first little guy took off after him and chased him away, then he came back and sat some more. He'd turn his little head to look to the left or right, then back at me. Every once in awhile he'd have to chase off another intruder, then he'd come back chewing something and sit there keeping me company. He was so cute, how could I not talk to him? I told him I didn't have any skeeters, but he didn't care, he was eating something already. Cappy moved the boat up the bayou aways, leaving my little guy to find something else to amuse himself back there. Cappy got his pole back into the water and asked if I didn't want to fish some. Hah. I got my "tent" set back up instead. I had to tightly hold onto the umbrella or the whole thing would collapse and I'd be frying in the sun. Occasionally a nice strong breeze would blow up and Ohhhhh, it was delicious but then it would whip my sheet off the top of the umbrella, and then cripple ...crinkle the umbrella so it folded up in a crazy fashion, and there I'd be again, frying in the blazing, scorching sun. Sweating and seething, I'd wrap the hot red bed sheet...the miserable thing, swathe it around over the top of the gawdy brand new purple dilapidated umbrella and got myself seated under it again, quietly fuming in that shady cloth "easy-bake" oven, "Where's my freaking happy place, where's my freaking happy place".  Our boat must have looked like some kind of sight from down the bayou. One guy drove up close by to see what in the heck the big beet red and purple heap was back there behind Cappy. When he spied my eyeballs peering out at him, he said, laughing, as he drove off, "Who's the smart one?" I'm still wondering about that. By now, Cappy had hit a "honey hole" and was pulling in fish with some regularity. He asked me again, if I didn't want to help.  (........uh...no.) The day was really beautiful though, and here came another dragonfly. He was a little blue fellow. He didn't seem all that interested in 'visiting' with me, though. He was more interested in chasing off other dragonflies from his "find". While he was off directing bug traffic, ...just great, a huge horsefly started in on us. I guess he didn't see me under all my gauzy "shelter" and whatnot, so he started looking for a cozy place to sink down onto Cappy while he wasn't looking. Meanwhile, here comes our little blue mosquito hawk. He's very little compared to the behemoth that's circling around Cappy's shoulders. Those big huge horseflies hurt when they bite! Cappy was totally unaware that he was about to be assaulted. I was about to get out and find something to try to swat it away, when suddenly that brave little dragonfly attacked the fly and chased him away! The dirty rotten hulk of a fly tried sneaking back a moment or two later from the other side of the unsuspecting Cappy. And again, our miniscule hero shot off after him, and this time followed him away just to make sure he wouldn't come back.  I didn't know little bugs like that were so daring as to take on 'somebody' so much bigger than themselves in their 'line of duty'. I was thoroughly impressed. When he came back and sat down at his 'post', I said, "Wow! You're a good bug to do that! You were protecting Cappy weren't you? You're a good boy...or girl,  you are". Cappy said, "Okay, we're going in. Eight fish is plenty. I can tell the heat is getting to you, I need to get you home so you don't have a heat stroke or something." Just about then he tried pulling up his trolling motor, but it got stuck and we were several miles still down the bayou. He wiggled it and jiggled  it, and he was all hot and sweaty, so let fly a few sailor expletives and finally got it loose. I said, "Boy, that's gratitude for ya...the moquito jet/hawk was taking care of you, (and he must be pretty strong to ward off that mean jumbo jet of a horse fly), and then you go and say bad words like that. You better watch out or, and I have this on good authority, he'll sew your lips together, Cappy".  "Sew what??" he asked, as he kicked the boat into high gear, laid it down nicely onto the surface of the water, and said, "I've gotta get you home outa this heat; I think you are going buggy on me". An so I sez, with the cool breeze in my face blowing away the heat, "Yeah, mebbe I am, but now I've found my happy place. Soooo there an' soooo what."          

Spooky Black Cats and Rhoda

   Mrs. JingleBells seems to be the only cat left in our yard. The others have gone to find more deserving homes, no doubt, where no crazy bichons will terrorize their every move. The strangest thing happened this week. I told Mrs. JingleBells, while petting her as she sat on my lap in the grape arbor, "I miss all your kids. Where did they go? At least bring back Moe-fee to see me; he was a pretty silly boy, who loved me." He's been gone for about a month and a half. I was just talking. She was just purring.
   The next day...the very next day (!) who showed up! Moe-fee; he still has his baby mew...for some reason, while his siblings acquired a full depth 'meow', his was always a tiny 'mew'. So, how odd, but then his mom was  nowhere around that day. What's up with these silly black cats? He was gone the next day, and his mom was back. Spooky.
  Speaking of spooky, it, being today, I was trying to remember the creepiest thing I could remember about my childhood, but the only thing I came up with, was our cellar. We lived in Olean, NY, on top of the levee of the Olean Creek. From my Dad's memoirs, I learned that his uncle Dan, a tugboat captain, had built our house in the mid-1800's. It was a fine old house, built over a basement which was crudely dug into the ground. There were no real concrete walls, perhaps a few stones lined the wall here and there, the floor was just  flattened, tamped down dirt. It was dark, the air was dank and cool, there was one 40 watt light bulb hanging near the stairs. There were several rooms down there, of which I never dared go into; it was sufficient enough for me to peer into the first room where decrepit shelves were lined with old, old canned goods, from who knows what generation, and where thick, ancient cobwebs draped everything.  Actually, I never wanted to venture down there at all. Just getting down into the basement was a very creepy challenge. First a huge very old door had to be lifted and secured, which was built into the cement floor of the closed-in back entryway to the house. One day, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to explore, so, peering down into the gloom, and cautiously feeling down into it with one foot, finding the icy cold hard cement step, then the next, and next, while trying to duck under where I thought spider webs might be lurking. Just then my brother showed up with a flashlight which flooded the whole stairwell where we immediately spotted several families of spiders roosting everywhere! GAH! We've never seen spiders like this in our lives! They were completely white. They looked like their bodies were made of a cellophane-like filament filled with puss!  Even their eight legs! We just stared at them, horrified, frozen where we stood, until a couple of the larger ones started moving about. We were then OUT of there! 
   Our Dad was nonplussed about it; he said they wouldn't bother us, if we didn't bother them. We saw them occasionally over the years. My Dad would send my brother down there to put something, or bring it up. Since he was a brave teenager at that point, he didn't seem to mind.
   Because it was such an undertaking for the electric meter reader, since he'd gotten older, my Dad decided to just leave the cellar door open. Still, the meter guy wasn't happy about having to get down those stairs trying to avoid those white spiders and finding his way around down there in the dark...he said he never did like that place. Well....who did?
  Adjacent to our house, there on the levee, was our family owned sign shop. It was western New York's oldest sign business. Our great-great grandfather started the business by hand-lettering stagecoaches. The business grew, whereby many types of signs were built by our sign company. As such, there was always some odds and ends that had to do with commercial art stashed here and there in and around the old sign shop. Many of the 3-dimensional art objects ended up in the house, as well. One of these was a mannequin. My dad brought her in during his lunch break and named her "Rhoda" one hot and summer day.
   My grandmother scolded that we had enough stuff in the house already and to take his 'date' elsewhere, but we three teenagers, my young aunt Bev (same age as I am), my brother and I, all thought that Rhoda was the coolest thing we'd seen in awhile, so persuaded Grandma to let us keep her.
   "Well, just keep her out of sight when company comes," ordered Grandma, lightly dusting off something with her lace-edged hankie.
    Rhoda might have been out of sight of company, but we dragged her everywhere. Although she had no hair, Bev being a beauty school student, fashioned her with a scull cap, much like "flappers" in my Dad's younger days used to wear. So, Rhoda looked just fine, we thought, for public display. We packed her into our friend's car and cruised around town, one time she showed up at my brother's band practice, anywhere my grandmother would not be caught dead, we took Rhoda. It was "The Summer of Rhoda".

 My Dad, our friend, Paul, Rhoda and me.

 Me with another black cat, Rhoda, Paul, and Bev with her dog.

    Rhoda, Paul, Bev and me. We all had a wonderful summer with her that year. We loved her shock value, as well, of course. That was her charm.
    Well, Fall set in and so did the rigors of school, so Rhoda kind of got left to go her own way. Grandma got disgusted with her being in the way all the time, she said. We put her in our bedrooms, but she kept getting in the way there, too.
   Sadly, we never realized that we hadn't seen her around for awhile. We were busy with school and after school activities.
   One quiet afternoon at the end of October, we heard a tremendous SHRIEK from somewhere in the house and a thundering coming up the cellar stairs, followed by the back door slamming HARD, as wailing was heard all across the back lawn and into the distance.
   A true mystery. It was solved somewhat later, as the meter man refused to come read the meter for six whole months, when he retired. It seems that his nerves were already frazzled as he slowly crept down those dark stairs into the cellar. He shined his dim flashlight around to find the archaic cobwebbed meter, then suddenly had a strange feeling on the back of his neck that someone was watching him. "Impossible," he thought, turning his flashlight to find himself face-to-face with Rhoda's cold dead eyes staring into his, as she stood, hidden in the corner just inside the door where Dad had put her for safekeeping. 
  The meter company had to send somebody out to fetch the poor old guy's flashlight and writing pad, in whatever direction he had tossed them in his haste to escape our "dungeon".
  Good Ol' Rhoda, she still had one good adventure left in 'er. She was, of course, then banished from our house, but we always hoped that wherever she was, she was still havin' the time of her...well...Life?