Nature: Spiders, spiders, everywhere!

One of the features of the wild west that we are re-discovering is the wildlife.  I have a couple of posts coming along about some cool animals that we have seen around, but I thought I would just jump right to the most exciting discovery: Spiders. I should preface with the fact that I have a natural fear of spiders.  Not a phobia that shuts me down in the fetal-position on the floor, but when I see a spider, I get goose bumps and usually jump out of my chair a bit.  I have been getting better over the years having lived in Iowa, where you are surrounded by spiders, and they are always trying to get in your house all year round. I am to the point where I see a spider, have a brief moment of disgust, and then proceed with smooshing it or getting it out of the house. Whenever Halloween rolls around, people start wearing spider pins, necklaces and broaches.  I am thinking, "Are you nuts? You have a fake beadazzled spider on your shirt and you are OK with this?"  I still have dreams from time to time that a spider is descending from the ceiling just above me and it freaks me out every time.  And, literally, as I type this blog entry, I have this weird feeling that bugs or spiders are crawling on my back and neck.  Psychosomatic, I am sure, but I am able to keep on writing somehow.

Our first week in our house in Salt Lake City, we noticed some spiders in the house, garage and in the basement.  There were also a lot of ear-wigs in the house.  And those are particularly gross due to the pincher things on their tail ends that get hoisted in the air and such. We also have ants and wasps, each requiring their own treatment to get rid of them. (I should mention, the house was vacant for a few months before we moved in so maybe the bugs thought they could just get settled in while no one was watching.

For the most part, they were spiders we were familiar with from Iowa, nothing too shocking. The second weekend, we were in the back yard cleaning up a bit, and noticed a spider in the window well to the basement with a spooky web that was scanty, unorganized, and just a mess in general.  The spider was about 1/2" in diameter with legs going out from there, and it was all black.  When we looked at the underside, we saw the tell-tale red hour glass and realized it was a black widow.  Yikes.  We knew these were out here from time to time, but at our house?  I didn't want to try to get it by hand seeing as they are poisonous and all, so we got the bug spray and had at it.  I came back a day later and it was on the ground, out of commission.  We since taken the opportunity to spray the entire perimeter of our house multiple times since then.  We noticed there was a bit of a run for our house afterwards, with spiders trying to get near the windows for a while, but eventually it died down, and we hadn't seen anything in a while.  

We thought things were settling down, but then last weekend, we were gone for 2 days, and when we came home we noticed there were 3 spiders in the garage, near the overhead door. 2 were dead, with ants eating them.  Who knows what happened there.  There must have been a bug party complete with a turf war that took place.  The third spider was still alive, and big.  Really big.  At first we thought it might be a baby tarantula, which I have been warned are present in the far west end of the Salt Lake valley.I got a picture of it before I swept it out of the garage. Tada!

When I went to sweep it out of the garage, it rolled over a couple times into the driveway, and then a strange scattering if little baby spiders started spreading from the parent spider.  SUPER CREEPY.  That's probably the worst spider encounter I have had since I was a kid living in Texas. So, yes, all those little things on it's back in the photo are indeed baby spiders. Yuck yuck yuck.  I ended up spraying the entire crime scene with Ortho to keep those babies from getting back int he garage.  I think this might be a wolf spider like we had in Iowa, but it is bigger, and had it;s family there to greet us. Has anyone else seen these that knows what they are?

All these surprises have kept us on our toes, and keeps me motivated to keep the perimeter around the house clear of weeds and other insects, and I will keep spraying.  I think I will wrap up this post so I can get on with my evening and stop thinking about 8-legged beasts of the insect world!

Traffic : The New Commute

As I have been figuring out the best way to get from home to work and back, I have tried driving different routes and trying different times of the day.  Right when we first moved into our house, I snapped this photo from on top of a ridge along the way to work.  There is wide shoulder where you can pull over, and I am tempted to pull over and watch the sunrise form time to time.

I thought I had found my perfect route, allowing for the occasional delay due to an accident.  And by occasional, I mean there is an accident on 7800 South or Redwood Road almost every day. The statistics may not hold up to my claim, but it seems as if there is an accident somewhere along these roads each day.

Unfortunately, my perfect route got hit with a double-whammy:

1) There is a lane closure on 7800 South which has caused east-bound morning traffic to back up about a mile. Ugh.  The message boards say that this will only last through September, so there is hope for relief in sight.

2) School started.  Because there are so many schools here, there are just as many school zones, and the traffic to get in and out of a school parking lot spills on to the roads, and backs up the traffic.  The way I first knew that school was officially in session was when I sat at a stop sign in traffic for 10 minutes the first morning due to my proximity to a high school. School starts at 7:30 AM, so the traffic starts up right when I would normally head to work.

Needless to say, I have a new route and a new schedule.  I have started leaving for work at 6:45 AM and there doesn't seem to be nearly as much traffic.  I used to leave at 7 AM in Iowa, but it was more to maintain my schedule rather than to avoid traffic.  One thing I have really enjoyed is seeing all the great sunrises on the way to work.  The mountains here are just so beautiful.  Here is a sunrise from this morning.  Pretty spectacular!