Sprinkles

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Spiders and bees....

.... and other things that go bump in the night.

Haven't been sleeping well lately... I don't know if reading "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" has anything to do with that or not.

Last night, I woke up not once or twice, but thrice (love that word)... each time thinking (knowing) that there was either a spider or a scorpion in the bedroom. My imagination does tend to run wild.

There are spiders all over the yard lately.... one by the back steps of the porch (whom I've named Charlotte because she's been in that spot for weeks now)... and one huge spider in the gazebo (which is so big that I can clearly see it from the kitchen windows)... and now there are two in the front of the house: one right above the front door and the other by the water hose next to the front steps.  All those spiders are yellow and black (banana-spiders) and they patiently wait and wait for something to fly into their webs, which are also enormous. (Very pretty webs, actually, but huge beyond belief.)

Last night, at my second awakening, I took the little flashlight that I keep in my night-table and let it shine around the room.... along the carpets, up on the ceiling, across the curtains.  Nothing there, of course, but that doesn't mean that there could have been. Maybe I just missed it with the beam of the flashlight as it crawled underneath the bed. (I resisted the urge to get on the floor and shine the light under the bed, which I've been known to do.)  During all of the flashlight waving, my husband was sound asleep, not a care in the world. (Men.... not a thought in their minds that there could be a spider or scorpion attack at any given time during the dead of night.)

Kill me now.  I never had these insects-on-the-loose nightmares when we lived in Clear Lake. Not a scorpion in sight there, and hardly ever a spider in the house.  We used to have a pest-control service there which sent a guy out every three months... they sprayed bug-stuff all around the house and the yard.... my neighbor across the street told me that I was creating my very own Three Mile Island with all the insecticide that was sprayed on our property and which drifted onto the neighboring yards as well.  Since we've been in this house, we've had a pest-control company out here just one time. Then my husband found out which chemicals they were using, ordered them on-line, and told me he would "take care of the spraying" from now on.  As I said: Kill me now.  My husband is busy with other stuff all the time, and doesn't give a thought to bugs and spiders and scorpions. (Men.... not any concern at all that the insects could take over the world out here in this country bubble.)

As for the bees.... nests all over the place outside. More bees than wasps this year. I sprayed an entire can of 'Raid' this afternoon on just two nests... huge nests of bees on the front porch. My husband says that we need the bees. "Not on my porch," said I. "But if you kill all the bees, the environment will suffer," he told me.  "If I don't kill the bees on this porch, then I will suffer because I'm allergic to the stings," said I.  (Men.... no compassion at all.)

When we were in England earlier this month, I didn't give a thought to bugs, spiders, bees, or wildlife of any kind. Not a split-second's thought, and that's admirable because we spent part of each day walking through gardens filled with flowers which were probably buzzing with all sorts of bees.

"And how do you explain that," asked my husband.
"English bees are different... they have manners... they wouldn't dream of stinging anyone, unless they apologized for it first."  He gave me that look.  (The look that says I've lost my mind.)

I wonder if there are snakes in England. There can't be, because I didn't think of snakes the entire time we were over there..... walking through gardens, walking on paths underneath trees in arboretums... never once did I look up into a tree to see if a snake was folded over a branch and ready to plop down near my feet. Not once did I think that I would get caught in a sticky spider-web as I walked under a tree.... and I never ever worried about stepping on a nest of fire ants as we walked around the gardens of all those castles and churches.

I will probably kill my own self right here on our own property. As I walk on the grass around the house, I've learned to look down for fire ant mounds, sideways for bees and wasps and crickets which come flying out of the hedges, and then I look up into the trees for snakes.  And then there are the scorpions hiding under rocks.... and the spiders building webs next to the porch steps... it's a veritable jungle out there. Scratch that. It's a freaking jungle out there.

No wonder I can't sleep at night.

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