I have been itchy almost every day that we have been here. I have had several mosquito bites and bites from "sand fleas" at the beach. Who ever heard of a sand flea!?!? I think 'nature' is going a little too far. Andy thinks all the itching is just in my head, but I can assure you that it is not. I think I am physiologically more prone to bug-induced itchiness than he is.
The first time Andy went out to explore our back yard forest, he came back in to tell me about his adventures and half way through the conversation, he noticed two, count 'em, TWO ticks!! He was only out there for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, they had not burrowed into his skin yet. But I was not entertained. I now spray mosquito/tick/flea repellent on me if I know I'm going to be outdoors for more than 5 minutes.
When Andrew and Amy were here, they clued us in to a very important aspect of southern living: insecticide barriers. In fact, Andrew went out and bought us a big ole jug of bug spray. Andy dutifully sprayed it around the house both inside and out last Saturday. Since then, we have noticed that there have been a few dead or confused bugs that have come out of their hiding places. I have no compassion for these bugs and can only hope that the pesticide barrier does the trick.
This afternoon, I found the following little beast just waiting to doorbell ditch me on our front porch.
Yes, that is a real spider. It looks like a fake Halloween spider. It's like some kind of a baby tarantula or fuzzy piece of gross. It sat in the same spot for several hours and after I made Andy investigate it, he determined that it was dead.
Needless to say, I miss the good life in sunny, dry, less-creepy-crawly California.
6 comments:
For years I dreamed of living in North Carolina and have only changed my mind since arriving in Washington and loving it here. But Rob always warned me that I would HATE the bugs. So I found your little story highly entertaining. I would have to agree with your sentiment. Here my biggest pests are the six inch long slugs! Ewww. I recently pruchases a very large bag of slug and snail bait! I love reading your blog by the way.
gross!!!!!! remind me not to move there...though we had layovers at the charlotte airport over the weekend and i loved it! so cute with all the rocking chairs everywhere :)
...yuck, yuck, yuck!! Boric acid was a favorite of mine for securing down the fort in ATL (from crazy lookin' crickets & grossss roaches). Just thinking about that fuzzy creature on ur door step makes me shudder...! eewww. You're a brave, brave woman.
I'm not laughing at your pain. I promise. Mostly this whole post made me giggle, Andy on an adventure, Andrew getting you a "big ole jug" of bug spray, and the "fuzzy piece of gross" just put me over the giggle-edge. lol
That last spider looks like something Robert & Josh would love to have as a pet! ;)
This is Andrew - - -
Funny stuff! I laughed until I stopped. I love the image of you being held at bay by a dead spider. You'll have to let me know how the tub-o-poison does. Hopefully the critter-meter registers much fewer bugs on your turf. It's about time for another round of bug spray here, too. I used the cheap stuff in March and I think it's worn off. Gotta love them critters.
Thanks for the laugh!!!
As the owner of a tarantula, I object! Kidding. But you DO know where you get your creepiness for creepy crawlies, don't you? From Mom! Woo hoo! Finally someone in the family who is also turning into Mom! I'm more of a germ-a-phobe myself. But when Ben bought a paper bag-full of crickets for the tarantula and forgot to put them in her cage I displayed some serious no-bug skills! The crickets chewed their way out of the paper bag overnight! Ben was amused. Not me. I was murdering crickets (nine in all) for the next two days.
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