Texas: Hey you know how you and Gordon sometimes wax poetic about moving to Australia, with beautiful beaches and nice hot weather, and random wildlife that tries to murder you?
Me, rubbing my eyes first thing in the morning: Mhm.
Texas: Don’t go. I love you. Look, I’m really trying. I made this just for you. Look how furry it is.
As I was getting out of bed this morning, Gordon opened the door from the bedroom to let the dogs out and was like, “Bring the phone!” That’s the view.
It’s not even the mating season. That’s in august. I just checked and our visitor is still there crawling on the wall. That’s Aphonopelma Hentzi, otherwise known as Texas brown tarantula. A good size, too.
And how is your morning going?
I’m guessing folks don’t want to know about the texas tarantula migration from may to october in central texas. Yours is probably just getting a head start on finding a mate.
1. Close my mouth before screaming starts.
2. Pinch myself to restart my heart.
3. Reach for the baseball bat. You have one close, right?
4. Call the exterminator you have on speed dial.
5. Slam the door until the Calvary arrives. ????
When we were stationed in Texas, I remember driving over roads completely covered with tarantulas during mating season. Seriously, country two-lane highways filled with spiders, no pavement to be seen. it was so creepy. However, no one was scared of them. Brown recluse spiders were the real threat, and everyone had a nasty story about a recluse bite. Here in Arizona, we had a baby scorpion manage to squeeze into the house so we always were slippers, but they aren’t life threatening poisonous luckily.
See? The Mohawk Valley, Central Region of New York, between 2 mountain ranges. Lots of lakes, and very little closes as we know how to handle snow.
You can go outside all year long, even in the summer!
The worst was that my cat brought me a mouse from the dungeon of the limestone block basement of my 200 year old house.
No tarantulas.
Just moved back to San Antonio after over 30 years in Southern California. I rarely saw a roach out there but we lived in an old, old house with a basement. We had black widow spiders, and since we never went in the basement, I kind of had a live and let live attitude about them. Once we had a very young plumber who had to go down in the basement, and he flew out of the basement, white-faced, and said, “there’s black widows”! He refused to go back until we bombed the basement and when he did come back, he wore a white coverall and carried a broom and a can of bug spray. Oh, well,
I live in Texas too.
Me, sitting at friends kitchen table: What was that? I think I just saw a mouse.
Friend: Kicks at shoe on floor.
Me and friend: * Screaming* . *flailing arms* OMG OMG SCORPION!
Aww, I was thinking you were going to say Texas made you a lovely field of flowers. At least that spider is easy to find…? (Although I’m glad I don’t live in Texas!)
Anthropomorphism of Texas in conjunction with talk of Australian wildlife of course made me think of this Scandinavia and the World:
https://satwcomic.com/i-swear-australia-is-just-filled-with-real-life-pokemon
It’s beautiful in a photo. But up close and personal, I’m pretty sure I would have needed paramedics.
I have never been so glad to live in the Great White North. It snowed yesterday and hopefully that will keep the furry spiders away!
And, this is why I live in New England. Snow is better than this ;-).
Well, there are the bluebonnets!
Ha! Our town has a Fall Tarantula Fest! We also have artwork!
The Artwork
That is so cool!
So yeah New Zealand would be better than Aus gor moving countries, for one the wildlife doesn’t try or even want to try killing you ????. Much safer. but I’m biases, I’m a Kiwi and would love for you guys to move here, I can’t justify a trip to USA to meet you at a signing but my partner would be okay with me travelling a few hours within country for that ????????
That is a big fuzzy ball of Nope, not no way, not no how! I would have to move, because there’s fire involved in getting rid of those.
*shudder* Phew, I’d pack up and move if I’d seen that.
i don’t remember spiders when i lived in texas. At that time it was Fire Ants, which i found out can swim and bite you in the pool. and cockroaches, where you had to knock on the cupboards before you opened them if you didn’t want to see them. A good thing too, i wouldn’t have been able to handle spiders that big.
Arghhhhhhhhh move here to Scotland! It rains a lot but it’s beautiful, has fantastic people and doesn’t have frickin’ TARANTULAS!!!!!!
They are pretty balletic though. From a safe distance, in case they want to jump on your face.
i am SO GLAD to be living in northern Colorado. We get grass spiders, mosquitoes, and ants. That’s about it. Way less flies, ticks, and scary critters than other places I have lived. it’s nice to be able to go camping and not worry about zipping the tent shut. Or opening the door without using a screen.
And suddenly Northen Colorado looks like a viable location for my next move.
laser rifle?
Get the blow torch!
Suddenly I feel better about my -26 C weather this morning! Nothing at all was crawling on my house!!!
That photo makes me happy to live somewhere where it’s still snowing and the first of the ‘bears and cougars are about’ warnings have gone out for the year. No tarantulas, scorpions or rattlers anywhere close by.
OMG anything but spiders!
How cool ! I’ve only seen one in the 17 years we’ve lived in TX.
But what if we threw in some paintbrushes?
just to gross everyone out…somewhere in the garage is a photo of me, well, actually my arm, with a tarantula hanging out on top. it was at a zoo event celebrating their new insect house. so yeah, I’m cool with them, but NOT first thing in the morning!
Well, that will certainly wake you up fast! I always wonder if spiders tell their friends later about the horrible surprise they got when the big human creature shrieked at the sight of them. Or maybe spiders do their own version of a shriek. Hmmm.
Nope! No way …na uh!!!! Come to “
PA… no bad bugs… except ticks!!!!
A special furry nope! ????️a large furry hell no. Lol. Mine is much less arachnid-y.
When I was still living in Los Angeles up in the foothills, I would see fuzzy tarantulas walking along the dirt road I did my walks on. Eeeep.
My aunt had a pet tarantula when I was a teenager. I talked to her, I made kissy faces through the glass but I never held her. And I will hold most things (if I see a fallen bee I have no qualms picking him up in my hands, beetles are my buddies even though they often poop on me (but NOT cockroaches) yet I’m a little bit arachnophobic.
I do my best to catch spiders and relocate them from the house and can actively admire them outside of my home as they are oddly cute but if it’s uncatchable and I don’t think I can get it before it hides under something waiting to come and crawl on me in my sleep and lay a million babies in my crevices then I will very apologetically murder them. Which then adds fuel to the fire of my thoughts that they want vengeance and will kill me in my sleep if left in the house alive.
Those is just scary and gross. I hate spiders.
The flowers are pretty.
I’m fine with tarantulas. It’s the tarantula hawk that frightens me more. We saw one one time at the park following a tarantulas scent trail and very quickly vacated.
Seconded!
????
That’s just a baby. Just kidding, it’s the same size as our friendly Huntsman we have out in our veranda.
If you are gentle most will walk right into your hand.
In Australia our spiders try to eat our snakes, would still take them over the tarantula ????
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-05/brown-snake-stuck-in-redback-spiders-web-in-two-wells-shed/102055504
My friend lives in Canberra. She has a “pet” huntsman that lives in her pottery shed and eats other bugs. once in a while it’ll come down and rest on the warm pots. yikes.
I live in Maryland and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom! My neighborhood is full of them. However my allergies are so bad right now.
We don’t have tarantulas thank goodness but plenty of other creatures. I have to take my husband to the emergency room at least once a summer from wasp/ yellow jacket stings. He’s highly allergic.
Ewwwwwwww! I’m sorry – spiders are my Achilles heel. Aaahhhhhhhh!
I know they’re not deadly but I just can’t…anything with spiders.
I guess if I had to choose between tornadoes/hurricanes and tarantulas, I’d pick the spider. But they like to hide….
No thanks, I’ll take Oregon (banana belt/Willamette valley) and the wonderful rain.
A friend of mine just moved to Helotes just outside of San Antonio. It sounds lovely, perhaps check it out?
BUt But DI texas gets tornadoes, hurricanes, and has tarantulas.!!!
What a cute spider
Gulp. They give me the willies. They mate practically in my backyard which conects to open space all the way to the Santa Monica foothills, where the tarantula get-it-on party is.
Worse than tarantulas (in my opinion) is the calisoga spider or “false tarantula”. They are huge and fast. A monster crawled across my kitchen floor and before I could do anything about it, it disappeared behind the stuff in my pantry. Horrifying.
Ooo I’ll have to go look that one up. Never heard of it.
I’m seeing this in the afternoon, so I’ll just say “Stop effing snowing!!!”
that is all
When I was in the fourth grade, I rolled over in bed and opened my eyes one morning to find a pregnant tarantula on the wall next to my bed, not 12 inches in front of my face.
My dad was happy and excited because they eat mice in the fields. He took her out of the house and found a nice spot in the lower field for her.
His reaction helped my reaction a lot. I wasn’t completely freaked out. But I can still pull the memory up in full color with all the accompanying sounds and scents very vividly, well over forty years later.
Nice example!! And at least it doesn’t try to murder you hehe, no venom. . Plus they are really not aggressive. I had a friend in college who kept one as a pet.
I just scoop them into any handy jar or plastic bin and relocate them to the nearest green belt. (Of course I realize that’s your back yard heh.) Did you know the females can live 30-40 years? There ya go, trivia for today.
I’m so glad I moved back to Missouri. I lived in Central Texas in the 90’s. No thank you!!
Between scorpions, tarantulas and other fun stuff like watermelon stealing raccoons, I can’t see why you would ever want to move. ????????♀️
I live in Michigan. We have wolf spiders. Not as big as the tarantulas. But pretty smart. My cats like to chase and eat them. so they stay hidden in the basement and eat cellar spiders. mostly.
and then there are the cellar spiders. My basement looks like it’s been decorated by a set designer for a 1950s horror movie. spider webs everywhere. I go thru with with a 20 gallon shop vac and clean out the egg sacks and then make sure to take the bags to the dump otherwise they take over the shopvac. which is creepy as hell. ask me how I know.
I’m arrived sunny so the sheets are getting washed and out and it’s change of season. so flannelette sheets old and feather Dona old and aired. plus my order on feijoas arrived yummy ????????????????????????????????????????????