Holy Crap!!

I do not usually have more than one post on any given day, but this could not wait. I just had to share what was lurking in my garage...

I spotted a decent sized spider web hanging off of our wheelbarrow. I went over to investigate and sitting like a princess in her web was a Brown Widow spider. This lovely variety has an orange hourglass instead of red and although their venom is said to be more poisonous than than that of a Black Widow, they are supposed to be less aggressive. For the record, I come across about one black for every five brown widows I see. Maybe they aren't as aggressive, but I certainly see more of them!

You know me, I had to take some photos. Just click on the pictures if you dare to see them any bigger.

Here is the tail end of one of the girls guarding the many egg sacks:


Here are the egg sacks - After I sprayed them with spider killer:


Here is the first BW after she was sprayed:


Here is the second and larger BW before:


And here she is after:


For good measure, I also smashed the spiders to make sure they were indeed dead. I do NOT even want to consider the ramifications if I had not discovered all those egg sacks! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it! The fact that these are poisonous makes them weird me out even more. This is also one of those things that makes my relatives from the North think twice about visiting us.

And yes, I will be telling the bug guy about this!