Where I live, living with various kinds of critters and creepy crawlers is part of everyday life. "Want me to check you for ticks?" is not just a pick up line, but a right neighborly thing to do. I cannot say that I particularly like creepy crawlies and there are some critters that I prefer to ignore (i.e. skunks) but it would appear that my rather awkward attempts at being more hospitable have been recognized by the little souls in the creepy crawly community, and they just love to come on over to introduce themselves. Normally, an introduction to somebody (or is that some-crawly?) wouldn't be too big of an issue. I'd simply do what all great, proper "Southern Women" do. Smile politely, ask the usual introductory type questions, and then once they leave, say something like "Bless his heart!" The problem is, as it is with most inter cultural/species relations, "How do you do" means something different, in say, Arachnid, than it does to us. In Arachnid, "How do you do" seems to mean, "Well, move on in! And bring grandma and PawPaw too!" It was my grandmother who told me that spiders should be left alone when they're in your home. Apparently, they help with keeping flies and mosquitoes down to a manageable level. Then again, she also use to offset that by not minding the geckos coming in either. Why? Well, they help keep the spiders in check. Out here, we don't have any gecko's. Except for Gordon Gecco in my DVD collection, but I don't think he eats spiders. Maybe newborn babies, definitely NOT Arachnids.
Previous years, I have been really good about spraying the house boundaries, inside and out. I like Dr Henry McCloud's advice on keeping good boundaries in relationships. It helps keep the relationships healthy and reduces unnecessary distress. No reason why this shouldn't work with relationships of every kind, right? As long as you do indeed spray your boundaries with "Bug b Gone" the creepies and crawlies tend to leave you in relative peace and your home can look like (and I don't mean to sound buggist here) quite human. Sadly, when you forget to establish your boundaries properly, or the weather doesn't co-operate and stays at temperatures that cause the "boundary establisher" to lose some of it's "boundary staying power", then you have a serious influx of creepy crawlies, buggies, flies and even some strange caterpillar looking dude with bad hair (at least I hope that's hair!)
This year the Arachnids seem to have undergone a wonderful baby boom! Mazel Tov! Not so much reason to celebrate: the amount of time I spend taking down unwanted cobwebs. No, there are no such things as wanted cobwebs in my home either. When you pair a burgeoning Arachnid populace with at least three animals trying to shed their winter coats and just not quite getting there, you end up with "fuzzy wall" effect. It's when it looks like part of your walls, or stair risers or odd corners near the ceiling, have on little fur coats, or little hand muffs or those wonderful looking fur hats they need to wear in Russia during the winter months.
I will say this for my eight legged "friends". They do have individual style. Some of them like to use all three types of fur available to them i.e. dark grey, light grey and black. Other's like to keep their palette more monochrome (or is that mono-critter?) and stick with only one. Some make interesting patterns with the different kinds of fur, and others just don't care and just throw a whole bunch of stuff together and hope it works.
June must have been their equivalent of fashion week! Man, were these little bugs diligent workers. No sooner had you wrecked one creation, than another one was underway. I'd go to sleep in a fur free home, and wake up to new furry cobwebs in the corners. Some audacious dude, actually made a furry "stairway" from the kitchen light to the kitchen counter. I had hoped that repeatedly tearing down their work would have sent the message loud and clear: GO AWAY! Alas, I suspect that tearing down their work so diligently is Arachnid for: GOOD JOB! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! I thought that by withholding their main raw material source (malting animal hair) that would slow them down. The animals were subjected to heavy bushing, and in desperation, yes, vacuuming to get the malting done with. What was I thinking? These little dudes aren't afraid of getting the raw material from the source themselves! And enlisting the help of a six legged friend is not beneath them either! So today begins my Arachnicide. Maybe word will get round and they'll stop trying to set up shop in Mason D' Lang. I can only hope ...
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