Honey and Spiders

--This Locally produced honey ("where are the bees?","In the mountains") is sold at various mini-supers around town.  It comes in a large unlabeled plastic jar and is the color of reddish mahogany.  Ann thinks it has molasses or something added to it (she's not a fan), because it has a strong flavor and the consistency is runnier than regular honey.  It costs about 4 dollars for a quart sized jar, which seems pretty cheap, so maybe it is thinned with something cheap.

--Last night we had the BIGGEST spider either of us had ever seen (outside of a pet store or zoo), in our kitchen!   Ann let out a hearty scream.  We agree that it was 4 inches toe to toe. You can see it's eyes reflecting in the flash.   Catching it was out of the question.  Not knowing what kind of spider it was, we decided it couldn't live with us in the kitchen.  Poison in the form of a can of Raid was the weapon of choice; it was too big to hit with something or step on.

I gave it a good shot of Raid and it ran!  It scurried like a mouse behind the microwave then across the counter and I sprayed again, determined to make a quick end to it. I inadvertently sprayed the honey jar too.

After more scurrying and more spraying the beast was done in, but unfortunately so was the honey, all covered with oily poison.

The experience left us sad for the spider and what we did.  Looking at pictures of spiders later, it is hard to tell that it wasn't a brown recluse, though I don't know if they get that big.  That spider's bite causes a flesh melting wound and is especially serious for small children.

I will devote a future post to the critters we live with here, but I would like to say that most of our bugs are escorted peacefully outside with a few exceptions:  scorpions, large and fast centipedes, and now  overly large and scary looking spiders.

By the way, on our way back from baby turtle release the other night we came across a fat 5 foot long rattlesnake in the road (no photo, it moved quickly into the brush).  Everyone was impressed and stayed in the car!