now ladies, don’t be jealous

July at our little ranch is when the fruit trees are heavy with fruit, it’s when the wild plums are abundant way out back. The sun is hot, the horse is out to pasture, the kids are riding bikes and asking for popsicles. Sunny and carefree. Right?

Carefree, unless you have an aversion to spiders. Recently my sweet friend at LMLD remarked that I sound giddy…maybe from the heat and spiders.

These are two different spiders waiting to greet me as I picked wild plums this morning. I don’t know what kind they are, but if you feel the need to say swear words—it’s okay. I wish you could see how big they are because they are ginormous. My husband did a little girl skippy dance but was able to remain macho at the same time, which was unlike me who did a similar skippy dance accompanied by some words with *#$*^* attached to them while I ran 100 yards away.

I think it is only appropriate to keep sharing. Recently as I was sitting with my son out on the patio I saw something kind of fluffing in the grass nearby. It was this:

Did I enlarge that enough for you? We have seen many (too) of these this season. I admit the first one I saw I ran over with my car because I was too scared to do anything else. They creep me out but I tell myself they are God’s creatures and they are outside and not harming anyone. That is what I’m supposed to think, right? Isn’t that brave?

I left this one alone only to go out an hour later and find this:

They were fighting or mating, standing up on two legs. Let me tell you how awesome it was to see this right where I walk from my car each day. Oh boy, it was sooooo cool! I can’t step on them for two reasons….one being they are too big to fit under my shoe and the other being I would faint away. So I left them alone which seemed like the right thing to do. But the next day after killing a recluse in the house—in my bedroom mind you—my spider anxiety took a turn for the worse. That night I couldn’t even put my feet all the way down in the bed for fear of spiders. Everytime I feel a hair on my arm I shriek. I feel like a crazy lady. We have sprayed for spiders twice, in the Spring and Summer.

Do you want me to stop talking about spiders? Am I right? Are you jealous?

How about snakes? Can I talk about them?

Okay, I won’t. But that’s my husband, isn’t he so manly to hold that snake like that? He’s my hero. You can be jealous of him. He is a hunky, chunky, hunk-o-love.

* this is really just a test to see how often he reads my blog