Trina Machacek: Spider stories

I wrote some time ago about how baby spiders, in the fall of the year, are kicked out of their family spider homes. They are all given a supply of web that they hang on to and fly through the air to land on something that may catch their web.

A fencepost, an edge of a garage, an antenna, a tree. That’s where the new baby spiders start their own spider lives and the circle of life continues. Well guess what? That time is now. It is fall, full force and in all its grandeur. If you have the umph to go outside and look up on a sunny morning with just a tiny breeze you will be amazed at what is floating in the air. That’s my favorite spider story.

There are those who also have spider stories. It seems to me that the bigger the spider, the more legs and hairy the spider is the more chilly-willy factor there is attached to the spider story. Did you just shudder? I did.

Just a few days ago I was coming out of our local post office and met a wonderful couple who live in my neck of the woods. Very nice people that I got to meet and talk with for just a titch of time. In the conversation, among a lot of other topics, we talked of snakes and spiders. I have snake stories and I have a good respect for all slithering things.

I knew a guy that told me that he’d never kill a rattlesnake. His reasoning being that the snake might bite someone my friend didn’t like. Well, I couldn’t disagree. We all know a snake in the grass that needs to be bitten by other snakes.

My new friends hadn’t run onto many snakes here. But! Yes, a buzz worm ratlin’ “but.” They had spider stories from living in Arizona. Oh, my stars and garters. Big spiders. One of the best things living in a desert, up at 6,500 feet above sea level is that the bugs and boogie worms of other parts of our world are not as present here. I like that.

We have our share of black widows, hobo and wolf spiders. Ick. But when this couple started to tell me of the tarantulas, they had in Arizona the little hairs on the back of my neck quivered. The gentleman laughed at the remembrance of seeing the creepy things crawl up the side of the buildings during the cool tarantula migrating season.

Of going outside at night as the hairy things moved. They said sometimes they were as thick as our Mormon Crickets have been. Ok. Arizona. Check that off my life list of places to live. I am sure there are wonderful things about Arizona for sure. Don’t get me wrong. Just as I don’t really ever want to live in Las Vegas because of… well I am a rural girl. I like rural with no giant spiders.

It seems to be a thing; this I have bigger spider stories than you have. Like if I had a cow that gave 7 gallons of milk every day, someone else would, no doubt, have a cow that gave 8 gallons a day. And twice that amount on Sundays! Truly I love that about the human race. Because we learn all about people, places and things that we probably would never experience if not for someone else experiencing it. And then reveling in telling me and you all about it.

I have a friend that has a brother way down south. Like Georgia down south. She has told me of a visit she took to see him. Other than the sights and sounds of the city and his musician life, she loves to tell of the spiders and bugs. Something called Palmetto bugs.

They are big and quick and everywhere. As apparently are something called banana spiders. Yes, I love the high Nevada desert. Without those who tell of the bugs and spiders out there, how would I ever learn where not to go?

I took a trip to Texas with family years ago. I remember stopping to grab a burger at a fast-food place. On long trips we always looked for places with easy access to restrooms. This one place we stopped at had just the ticket. Outside entrance. No key needed. No fuss. No muss.

Until I opened the door, and the floor was like it was alive! Holy moly! I still get the heebie jeebies when I close my eyes and see these big, no HUGE black bugs about the size of the largest stink bug you can imagine, scurry to the corners of that bathroom when the door was opened. Again, to me, home means the high desert of Nevada.

Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. See her books for sale on her website www.theeurekacountystar.com, or email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com.