What is the value of a spider’s life?
Or a cricket’s?
My indoor morning chores include cleaning cat boxes. The kind they pee in, not the kind they sleep in, although sometimes…….I digress…
Why, I don’t know, but spiders are drawn to these boxes.
There was a time when I could not be in the same room as a spider, but I have progressed from there.
Small spiders, I even allow on my hand, briefly.
Small = tiny.
The two I found this morning were way past my squirm level. It isn’t just that I cannot bear the thought of those eight legs touching my skin (just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end)…
Grant stuck his head through the back door at just that moment:
“I need you to remove two spiders!”
“I’m busy!”
The two most commonly heard expressions:
“I’m busy!”
“Where are my glasses?”
How is it, that when men want help, you must drop everything to assist, but when women need help, those same men are always busy?
Though I should not assume this is always the case. When I lived with my aunt and uncle, we jumped at his first summons as to resist led to fireworks, a situation better avoided.
It’s a matter of conditioning.
So, it was me and the spiders. Now, even if I overcame my phobia, I wouldn’t want to pick them up for fear of injuring them, what with my clumsy fingers and possibly fainting.
And I don’t wait around for help to arrive, so I picked up the boxes, spiders and all and headed out the front door, just as Grant was attempting to herd the “walkers” back indoors.
Lucy takes a little persuasion. She heard my voice and ran from the garage as if she couldn’t wait to be re-united with me. Then she dodged off round the corner.
“Not yet!” she cried.
Rounding up cats is Grant’s job, so I left him to it, returning indoors with my spider-free cat boxes.
And on to the next box, which is in one of those areas that is “plastificated”, as more pee lands outside than in that box. (Oh save me from multi-cats!)
Beneath the plastic, a large squished cricket.
“Now, I was looking for you the other night to thank you for your song and to let you out. But you hid!”
It looked awfully flat and lifeless, but I offered a slight poke and it moved.
Now I had to rescue a cricket.
Which meant moving the litter box, this one heavy as it contains actual cat-litter as opposed to washable bamboo paper-towel. (Eye roll)
Lift up the plastic and attempt to catch a large, suddenly very much awake hopping insect.
My mouse-rescue device is now also employed for cricket removal. It works, but you have to be careful, when lunging for the bug, not to squash it.
It went out to join the two spiders that are probably busy working their way back in. Foolish creatures all.
No photographic evidence, but here is today’s butterfly instead. Further to the sad story of failing chrysalises, Grant decided we should remove whatever caterpillars we could find on the diseased milkweed, and offer them a healthier feeding ground. Then we pulled up the blackened plants.
So you could say three more lives were saved.
All life is precious and they say you should try to do one good thing every day, so I wonder if this adds points to my karmic balance.
That’s not why I do it, though. When I was 12, I killed a snake because I thought it might be dangerous and I wanted my parents to think I was very brave. I have been trying to make up for that ever since.
Sometimes, snakes did find their way indoors and this one may have been poisonous, but at the time of my misguided attack, it had been minding its own business in the garden, so I still feel awful about it. My parents were unimpressed, one way or the other.
.
When Grant called me outside to see what he’s been so busy doing, I saw a flock of geese on the opposite hill.
They seem to commute back and forth every day to a lake hidden behind our hill.
If we ever get the car back, we will be celebrate with our first Fall outing, which includes searching for geese.
We often see them by the Hudson.
Grant has taken a new interest in the outdoors, so I cannot complain when he says he’s busy. These days there isn’t anything I can do to help.
At times I get tempted to wrestle with invasive weeds and so forth but, the fear of further spinal problems restrains me.
The entrance to our driveway has been enlarged to make it more accessible to delivery and snow removal men. Our neighbour is responsible for the road, so he did the heavy work with his earth-mover, but there was plenty of general tidying for Grant to attack.
Like re-locating rocks!
Where they will end up, I’m not sure.
.
It’s curious, but I imagine only coincidental that my garden always tends to be one colour or another, seldom multi-coloured.
There are numerous zinnias, for example, but just now they are all pink/dark red…
As are the Roses of Sharon…
.. the Buddleja and the Gaillardia.
According to the internet, Buddleja is considered invasive.
I shall not complain at all if it invades my flower beds.
Buddleia can be a problem in that its root systems can weaken any materials as they can grow through masonry and brickwork. There is quite a problem in UK with them growing alongside railways and weakening rails and bridges.
I’m sure my butterfly bush will behave responsibly!
Just don’t take it on any day trips near to railways!
Love the pink in your garden! Must admit … I’m no fan of a spider (even a tiny one) … my call will even get the most “busiest man” to come and assist with spider removal 😁!