incy wincy freakin’ spider

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It’s true what they say about Australian spiders. They are bigger and badder than any you may have seen else where in the world. I know, because I live here, and there is one currently residing in my worm farm.  Sure it might not be the biggest I’ve seen, nor the deadliest, (apparently harmless they say….pfft.)

The problem is not so much the spider, it’s the fact that I have gotten a little…city-fied.

I am no longer the person that would happily exclaim, crikey, look at that little beauty and gaze lovingly at my new co-tennanting eight legged friend. That person is no longer, (and some would doubt that person was ever really there.) I am what I am, a city hippy farm girl, and in this instance the city well and truly comes first.

So what to do when I casually slip off the worm farm lid to feed my squidgey friends, and am met with a skittish hairy eight legged freak?

Do I…

A/ Gaze lovingly on to its ample body, marvelling at its intricate markings and upright leg hair engulfing all of its rather quick legs?

Or do I…

B/ Scream like a crazy person, grabbing the nearest hard implement to me, (probably a wooden spoon) wave it ruthlessly in front of its four eyes before pounding it to spider crumbs while yelling, Diiiiiiie eight legged freak!!!!

Or I could,

C/ Assess the situation. Survey the nearby land. Establish that the kids are inside and don’t need to know. Mr Chocolate won’t be home for another 12 hours, and do I really need to ‘man-up’ and do anything at all?

Answer= C

Let’s quietly put the lid back on and pretend I was never here shall we? The worms weren’t really hungry anyway.

Next day and I had conveniently forgotten about the pit of terror outside my kitchen door. Off to check on my worms and lo and behold… There it is again. I’m sure the little bugger winked at me, while waving four of it’s legs at me in a decidedly jazz hands fashion. Quick inward suck of air and clumsy step back from me and we eye each other off. Ahh, what to do.

I did what any self respecting blogger would do and went and got my camera. Followed by Monkey Boy, who I excitedly showed him the ‘lovely’ spider residing in our worm farm. He was enthralled, gave it some eyeball love “WOW Mama, and then left me with the eight legged freak. You see I’m not silly, I wasn’t passing on any preconceived ideas on how to act around spiders. I waited until he left before I made a small gag noise and all the hairs on my arms stood on end.

So why don’t I like them?

Because they run. They run really quickly… and they jump. They are like the crowned Kings of Parcour , and I don’t like it one bit. I can deal with them when I need to, but as Mr Chocolate was home, I didn’t need to. I encouraged him to join me next to the worm farm of terrors and then politely told him he wasn’t coming back inside until he had ‘dealt’ with it.

Do you want me to kill it?

What ever needs to be done babe…

As I quietly bolted the kitchen door behind me, leaving Mr Chocolate waving a flaccid looking roll of newspaper at a bemused looking spider.

* …and he missed it. The eight legged freak casually parcour-ed off and still remains at large.

54 thoughts on “incy wincy freakin’ spider”

  1. She’s a beauty though, eh? They scare the living cr@p out of me though. Mice are worse, much worse, they lead to a lot of squealing the the setting of traps…

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  2. I bet he was eating your worms. Lots of folks talk like the only important thing about spiders is whether they’re toxic or not – but ALL spiders bite, even non-toxic ones – I used to play with Daddy Long Legs spiders until a big one bit me one day – they hurt!

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  3. Do spiders eat worms? (The image of a spider with a worm hanging out of its mouth …). Maybe it was after the vinegar flies. I have to say, I do like spiders. I still scream if one runs on me, but I can fairly happily share space.

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  5. Oh I like the C option too., I would have chosen that one for sure & seeing the dreaded spider remains at large I would (unfortunately & a little shame faced., but none the less., a girls gotta do what girls gotta do) punish my guy & tell him that until the spider is gone, he would have to take over all worm farm tending.
    Yep…., its a fault I know.., but there you have it 🙂
    Happy Hunting 🙂

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  6. I would have done the same. But I have also been known to burst into uncontrollable tears after a spider encounter. There’s no way I would have forgotten it was there the next day though. That spider image would stay with me every time I went to the worm farm. I’d be lifting the lid with a long stick from now on. You are very brave to control yourself and not show your fear to your kids. Unfortunately my eldest is freaked out by spiders and I know it’s my fault.

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  7. I quite like spiders, I also like mice, bats, lizards, don’t mind snakes. I wouldn’t want ot kill any of them, just give them a bit of space. We have a couple of lovely blue tongue lizards residing in our courtyard in Brisbane and I love to see their tails sticking out of a crack in the wall.

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  9. Wow, that dude is huge. He kinda has some cool designs on his back and legs. Maybe he is looking for a wormy treat? Thank you, my fellow self-respecting blogger, for being brave enough to take a picture!

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  10. He is an impressive looking dude, is that spider. Provided it wasn’t capable of delivering a fatal bite I’d be ok-ish in that situation – it’s the freakin’ big German cockroaches that undo me. Yeeek. Thankfully with the cold chill in the air, they seem to have gone into hibernation and maybe your arachnid friend has too!

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  12. now that is one big & hairy looking visitor!
    hope he is gone for good, no more waving & winking at you.
    brown ones don’t look so bad I guess, it’s those black ones I can NOT stand, especially near the kids bedroom, that freaks me out.

    you did well, good on you!
    ♥

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  14. We have a number of these constantly around our deck and occassionally in the house. I just catch them in a jar and relocate them elsewhere!!

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  15. It’s the eyes on stallks and the jumping that do me in. I divide spiders into different categories in my head. For some reason the small bodied, thin legged walkers are fine. The ones that lurk in funnels, bath towels, drop down from ceilings of rented cottages while you are in bed are NOT. So I go from A – C with no effort, rhyme or reason. Just how big was that one? We don’t get those here, except in the zoo. I did get a hair rising reaction up my arms when I saw the pics though 😀

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    • Actually he wasn’t even that big Joanna compared some of them that I’ve seen before. He was probably 10cm, from jazz hand to jazz hand… I have seen a huntsman as big as my hand before, and I have a really big hand!

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  16. I don’t mean to steal your thunder, but he looks a baby compared to some of the monsters we get up here in queensland. Imagine ones twice as big as this guy and imagine him on the wall just above your pillow. Happens all the time. I find the mop is a really good entrapment. They kind of get tangled in the ‘ropeyness’ of the mop, and it gives me time to get them outside and into the garden before they have a chance to untangle and jump off. Im forever saving them from the girl’s rooms. They always seem to be in their rooms, and of course the girls are terrified the most. Always the way.

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  19. I’m of the Miss Muppet type- I scream and run away.
    And honestly- if THAT spider sat beside me whilst I was eating my curds and whey- the end of the rhyme would be-
    ” and she fainted, dead away!”
    Oh my~Oh my!

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      • Not as big as yours!
        We have wolf spiders out in the garden in the fall that are around 2 inches at their largest.
        And that is good.
        Although I did have a black widow spider run over my hand as I was taking a bunch of grapes out of a package. It took me a couple of hours to calm down enough to sit down.
        I really hate spiders.

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  20. I’m so impressed that you photographed it! I would definitely have done the screaming bit because I’m not a fan of spiders at all. It’s at times like these that I’m so glad I live in the UK – I can live with tiny weeny ones, fairly happily ‘deal’ with small – medium ones and then have to psych myself up for anything bigger – but nothing on your scale!

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  21. We had a massive old diseased gum tree that needed to be removed and hired a burley lumberjack with a huge chainsaw to do the job. Halfway through he screamed and jumped into his truck and, whilst screeching out of the driveway, shouted that he’d just disturbed an entire nest huntsmen and they were marching towards him, so he was aborting the job. Never did see him again. Though I can’t blame him….

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  22. Oh they make my hairs stand on end too, and I grew up on a property! NB was so terrified the Australian lethal fauna that he would run around the house closing every window door whenever it started raining, because the terror would come inside!

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  23. I approach these big guys with a Chinese take away box. No I wouldn’t eat him dipped in chocolate, but they’re a good size box to catch them in, then slide the flat lid underneath the rim of the worm farm, shut him in tight. Let the little ones marvel at him until Dad comes home, then send him off with the box somewhere far, far away to release him no where near houses.

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  24. You did very well for getting so up close and personal with the Hairy One, in an effort to take some pics. Wonderful pics too, I might add. Spiders and me generally keep clear of each other, except when they are inside the house – this I consider home invasion and they need to be evicted. One thing I have learnt from my mum is to never vaccuum up scary looking spiders as she had a huntsman crawl up the vaccuum pipe right towards her hand!! Yikes! Best of luck ‘dealing’ with your arachnid.

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  25. It made me laugh that you photographed it – I am impressed your friendly spider posed long enough for a photo – s/he runs but not before you get her best side

    I am a bit like that with mice – and so was my mum – she once said to do what she did – put a box over it until my dad got home!

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  26. I just followed Joanna’s pointer – wow, I loathe spiders – even English garden spiders used to make me freeze to the spot. When I first encountered my very first Huntsman spider in Australia – in the bathroom – I sent my husband in and shut the door. There was so much silent thwacking going on for so long I wasn’t sure who was coming out. I’m impressed that you managed to move enough to get your camera! At the moment here in Brisbane we have a lot of Golden Orb garden spiders which spin very long and strong threads between their webs and anchoring points. Yukky, yukky!

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