New Appreciation for Bugs

Learning about bugs lately has given me a new appreciation for them.

After digging in the dirt last week and learning about grubs and Japanese beetles, I don't think they're so bad now and since their life cycle is so neat, I should let them live! Courtney's preschool teacher must have said one day, "Bugs have a life to live too!" so she wants to let them live too.

Well, I had the same thought go through my mind today as I saw a black spider crawl down my kitchen wall during breakfast. My first thought was to kill it! Get a fly-swatter and smack it right there! My second thought was that that would probably make Matt mad. We just had our kitchen walls painted last year and this spider had a pretty thick body. It would probably leave ooze and guts all over our walls (right Matt?).

My third thought was to kill it on the floor. I went and got the fly swatter and batted it off the wall. Unfortunately, it curled up into a ball and went into the heating vent on the floor. I pulled the cover off and started poking around trying to find it. I determined that it was dead and decided to let it be.

After 5-10 minutes, I had second thoughts about the poor spider. I thought we should get a container and get him out of the heating vent. Then we could study him! So I went and found a bucket and a sand scoop and was going to scoop him out. I took the cover back off the heating vent and found him. When I touched him, the spider unwound himself and took off down the vent! I really wanted him now, but he was gone! Apparently he wasn't dead!

I got another good look at him (black with a red spot on his back, short little legs) so Courtney- my new little biologist- and I could find out what kind he was on the computer. We searched and searched and we never found a picture that looked like him. I kept coming up with a black widow, but the legs were different. So I don't know what it was- I am so disappointed.

So now I've got a little arachnophobia. Since he went into the vent, I think he's going to come out of a vent in another room and scare me! I have been on my guard all morning for this little spider.