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Sun 4 Jul, 2004 02:39 am
Now let's not get all emotional about this, but my spider is missing. She lived on a shelf next to the shower head. Why? I do not know. She did not like water, and would retreat to the far side of her web as soon as it was turned on. It was kind of cute, really. Fine droplets of water would stick to her web, like early morning dew, and after a few days of her brief stay, the dew would show that she had made a tunnel, so she could dodge under the web, either to stay dry, or perhaps some sense of security. The latest remodeling effort resulted in a floor like structure under the main web, at the end of the tunnel. That turned up just last night, and I thought she was really settled in. Tonight - no spider, just an empty web. Like I say, no problem. She was a good spider, as spiders go, and as good spiders go, she went.
Her name was Princess.
Spiders move for the same reasons people do, not enough food, too much rain, the lurkings of predator birds.
Wasn't she a joy though?
Gone looking for a mate?
Are you SURE Princess was a she? The fellas tend to wander off and look for a friend. He may have been eaten! Love for the male spider can be a little perilous.
We had one of those shower spiders, and s/he suddenly became restless and began moving round - one day, s/he was on the floor of the shower when I came in, and threatened me.
I yelled at it, and sent it scuttling back to its web. It moved the next day.
Good riddance. Such personality changes are not to be tolerated in shower spiders.
Here, they tend to be of a species which can give a nasty bite.
do you people ever clean?
(don't look now... it's on your shoulder)
I much prefer spiders to ants or flying critters.
My computer is on the east side which is sheltered from the weather. I've always had a number of spiders outside. Last week I counted sixteen egg cases.
By the by, Roger, could your spider have laid eggs and gone on to a better world?
Yesterday I watched a nuthatch performing all sorts of aerial acrobatics to harvest those egg cases. Some were eaten on the spot--some were transported elsewhere.
Nothing is certain in this world.
Roger, I feel your pain. Your sense of loss. Gone is your little eight-legged Princess. Sigh. Such is life.
Never had a spider build a web in my bathroom. Also so is life.
Some weeks ago Mrs edgarblythe moved some toys around in a box on the floor. She carried a jumprope or something out for the kids to play with. Suddenly she got a spider bite on her upper wrist. Well, for a few weeks it seemed to be getting better and healing over. But she awoke one morning with the bite feeling painful; it had a black substance sitting on top. The doctor gave her a shot and advised her to use a double strength antibiotic ointment til it got well. She's okay now.
I also know a woman who got bitten while in bed. It left a painful mark on her cheek. The one that attacked her was possibly one of several that had been living along the corner of the ceiling and wall. She is in her eighties and not able to clean as well as she once did. I exterminated the little "pets" for her.
That's too bad about Princess. Ilook forward to the season of the spiders. They run rampant outside in July and August. We get big orb spiders all over this property. I haven't seen any yet. The smaller spiders have started hatching and we'll have hundreds of tiny little babies all over everything. Adorable.
Believe it or not, Joe, she was a joy. Not especially friendly, but better companionship in the shower than a cake of Ivory Soap in the bath.
Maybe a better life, Noddy, but I don't see a sign of eggs in the web, and if they were like the egg pouches left by the black widow (she wasn't that), there are certainly none.
I dun'no, Deb. Again, thinking of black widows, if it's in a web, either it's a girl, or it has a very low life expectancy. As for bites, it wasn't a widow of any sort. It wasn't a brown recluse, and this ain't Australia where everything is sitting around just waiting on for an unsuspecting person to wander into range.
Both the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse have lost habitat since the demise of the outhouse. A clever spider could spin a web over the hole and insure a steady supply of flies provided that no one plunked down in her way.
Sorry for your loss, Roger. You can come to my house and borrow one or a dozen from me. We have an abundance. I don't have a problem with them; I only wish they would clean up after themselves. They leave their bug carcasses everywhere...
Aha! There were no bug carcasses. This may be why she left - hopefully, under her own volition.
A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
Sharing your shower was doing nothing for the spider gene pool.
Roger, I mourn with you for the loss of Princess. Lack of food or the call of love might have led to her packing up and moving.
When my son was little, he yelled for me to 'come look' one day in summer. There was a little spider laying eggs which broke as teensy baby spiders came crawling out. It was fascinating. She died much like Charlotte, poor thing.
My ex husband wouldn't let me keep spider webs, the old fuddy duddy. Spider webs are things of beauty and should be preserved as much as possible, imho or my not so h opinion.
roger, you need to get out more often
I do not like spiders in my home. I would have moved princess from the shower and taken her to the garden outside, and then I would never ever think about her again.
By the way RogerÂ…sorry for your loss.
Yer probably right, Pueo.
Well, like I say, she wasn't really a pet. We just kind of occupied the same shower, from time to time, so there was never any emotional attachment involved.
Hey, Diane, long time - no see. Bet Dys lets you keep spider webs, huh? Princess was not one to make a fussy, but pretty web like those orb spiders. Once I'm sure she isn't coming back, I'll probably just flush it. Barring that, I'll take the seldom seen Quinn's suggestion, and spray paint it. That should preserve it for eternity.
Noddy; nice avatar.
Roger--
Thanks, all my son's work.
Diane--
Spider webs are very useful for stopping bleeding of small cuts. I think fresh spider webs are preferred to webs covered with atmospheric dust.
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