Fred and Other Things

It's a good thing that I like spiders. I got to work this morning, settled in at my desk, looked up and there, about eight feet away, was a HUGE spider. No exaggeration - that baby was about an inch long from toe-tip to toe-tip and about 1/2-inch wide - skinny body, long sturdy legs and matte black.

He (Fred - since all spiders that aren't black widows are called Fred) had no shine or red splotch. That means he survived our encounter. With the shine or the splotch, the name would have been meaningless since he wouldn't have survived.

In any case, it was a good thing for both of us that he was dangling at the crack of the door to the outside, about a foot below the door knob so our close encounter didn't get any closer than it did.

I offered him escape, which he declined. I insisted, and he ended up outside, on the bricks in front of the office door, intact but a bit disgruntled, I'm sure. It isn't particularly warm outside this morning, compared to inside, but I'm not worried about that.

Now, while I don't particularly mind spiders, I'm not fond of touching them. They are, while fascinating, still on the creepy side of the scale. And, while I know that they serve a good purpose, eating other bugs and each other, I am not interested in picking one up and hugging it or petting it.

In this case, I herded Fred off, out of harm's way using one of the fallen leaves that are scattered around on the paving. He was reluctant and a bit difficult, but I got him headed in the right direction, toward the English boxwood in the planter outside my window.

His shadow, because of his size and the angle of the sun, was impressive. It looked like something from some 1950's Hollywood B-movie: "The Spider that Chomped Calistoga!" or something like that.

I just wish I'd had my camera with me today. After I got him away from where someone might step on him, I came inside and did a search for local spiders. I didn't find a picture of my Fred - just a bunch of others, so I'm curious.

Is he a new variety of Fred? Something not seen in Napa County before? Or is he a cousin of one of the Mediterranean Freds that hitched a ride and have overstayed their visa? We do have an invasive species of spider that's arrived here, in Northern California from the Med. I found that in my internet search, along with a name of someone to contact at the Academy of Sciences to contact if one is found.

If I had my camera, I could have taken Fred's portrait and sent it off for identification. Who knows? Perhaps it's a new genus, something to which my name could be attached. Just imagine:  Fredus philippae or Fredus stirlingus or something like that. That would be pretty cool.

Sadly, perhaps, about thirty minutes after I set Fred free, the landscaper came by with his leaf blower and cleared the dead leaves from around the building. All I can do now is hope that Fred is safely tucked away, under the siding of the building or in one of the plants. Nothing I can do about it except hope that he survives.

If he does, and if I come in on Tuesday after our long holiday weekend and he's back here, hanging around and making himself at home, I will get his picture and send it off.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why it's only black widows that I kill, and not the infamous brown recluse, it's because, according to the experts (many of them), there are no brown recluse spiders in California. There may be brown spiders, but being brown doesn't mean they're of the recluse family.

To back up this unpopular position, have a look at this from the University of California at Riverside, written in 2014 (just last year!):

This website presents evidence for the lack of brown recluse spiders as part of the Californian spider fauna. Unfortunately, this contradicts what most Californians believe; beliefs that are born out of media-driven hyperbole and erroneous, anxiety-filled public hearsay which is further compounded by medical misdiagnoses. Although people are free to disagree, this opinion has come about after more than twp (sic) decades of constant research resulting in many publications in the scientific and medical literature. In addition to personal experience and thousands of spiders submitted to UC Rverside, the sources for this opinion encompasses conversations with, interactions with, and the cumulative knowledge of the following, who have experience or expertise in the state of California and, in some cases, are national or international experts:

• Arachnologists throughout the state including those at the Los Angeles County Museum and San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences (one of whom is probably one of the top 5 arachnologists in the world)
• The Calif. Dept of Food and Agriculture, which is responsible for identifying all exotic pests found in California
• County Agricultural Commissioner Office entomologists up and down the state
• Hundreds of pest control operators in both Northern and Southern California
• County vector and health personnel
• A U.S. recluse expert, who wrote the definitive taxonomic revision where he described the distribution of all North American recluse species, and who also happened to be a vector control person in Northern California, now retired.
• The late Dr. Findlay Russell, the world's foremost authority on animal venoms. Dr. Russell was an internationally renowned toxicologist, was a medical physician at USC Medical Center and consulted on hundreds of "spider bite" diagnoses in California. In fact, Dr. Russell's research was the impetus for many of the ideas expressed here.

Cumulatively, this body of knowledge represents hundreds of years of experience with spiders and/or their medical aspects in California and the identification of hundreds of thousands of spiders. So if you think the material here is in error, consider the strength of your own sources.

http://spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html

I love debunking Urban Legends and Myths, and now I'll turn my attention from Fred and get to work on other stuff.

I hope you have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

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Cat Sneezes, Dust Bunnies and Spiders - Normal Stuff

Where has my discipline gone? I can’t seem to find it anywhere and it’s making things harder than they need to be.

I have a long list of things to do this weekend. They’re not the want to dos to which I was looking forward. These are the must dos, the commandments.

Dust bunnies rest on the top of the grandfather clock in the hall, the one below the stairs from which I thought I’d got all of them last weekend. Either I missed some and they’ve replicated as only bunnies can do, or they’re new. In either case, they’re back with a vengeance. I need to vacuum all of the high surfaces, to see if I can catch the parents of these bunnies.

Festoons of cobwebs drape across the downstairs hall and in corners at the tops of walls all through the house. Those are due to the time of year – summer and spiders.

Our house is a haven for spiders. I think they’ve talked amongst themselves, “that house over there, you see it? Yeah, that’s the one. She doesn’t kill spiders, unless you’re a black widow. If you’re not a black widow, she’ll catch you and put you outside. I’ve been in and out of there four times already.”

I like spiders. I don’t necessarily like looking at them, although some are pretty cool if you get past the creepy factor. Some are actually aesthetically pleasing (I had to do that because I had already used ‘pretty’ and didn’t want to be redundant), if you take a minute to examine them. You don’t have to get close, just close enough so you can see what they’re doing and what they look like – no hands-on required.

A couple of years ago we had a big garden spider hanging between two bushes that frame one of our downstairs windows. Banded greenish yellow and black, with black tips on his legs, he lived there for several weeks.

Every morning I would get up and peek out. Nyx, the goddess of the night had passed by, leaving her tears behind. The web that stretched across four feet of front garden was heavy with them, shining diamonds that sparkled in the morning sun. The strands of filament were deformed by their weight and, in the middle, sat Fred. Just hanging around, gathering the warming rays from the sun, and waiting for breakfast.

All spiders in my house are called Fred. I don’t know why. They just are. Part of it is because having one name for all of them makes identification unnecessary. If it’s a spider, it’s Fred. I don’t have to look too closely to determine if it is really Fred or just a Fred lookalike. Unless it’s a black widow. Those are easy to identify, named or not. Then it’s dead and the name doesn’t matter.

I also have to wash my walls. Sam (our cat) had a period of several months where he had terrible sneezing fits involving bloody noses (think spray). As a result, we have cat-height ‘decoration’ along some of our walls and across the formerly un-patterned carpet.

Of course we took him to the vet who did a partial exam and said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s a tumor and there’s nothing we can do. He’s only got a few months.’

Between March and August, not much changed except the size, duration and velocity of the sneezing. We have cat height blood splatter in sufficient quantity that a forensic technician would drool.

Since containing and controlling wasn’t realistic, and no one was willing to just put him down, we let it happen. Walls can be repainted, the carpet was already a disaster (living with an ill elderly person brings its own challenges) so we chose not to worry. Eventually I took to putting him inside the shower stall when he started. At least that was easy to clean up when he was done. But the walls and carpets were already lost causes.

Still, he continued to eat and do all the normal cat things and, except for the sneezing, wasn’t showing any signs of being seriously ill. In September we took him back to the vet.

She put him out and stuck a tube up his nose so she could look at his sinuses. Happily it wasn’t a tumor but she also didn’t see anything that was causing it.

He had his last fit in March and even though he still sometimes sneezes, it’s not prolonged and doesn’t involve blood. Personally, I’ve concluded that he had something up there – a bit of food or something else that was irritating his sinuses. He used to shake his head a lot for days before, and then wham sneeze-fest.  The head shaking is gone as are the bloody noses so I get to try to clean up the walls. He's still here and doing fine at eighteen+.

It’s time for an oil change. I have things to do in the garden. There’s the grocery shopping and other outside errands.

A long list of stuff and my discipline to get them done has deserted me just when I need it most. May I borrow yours? Please? I’ll return it, mildly used.

Best~

Philippa

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