Eight-legged Tales....

Hi Everyone!


Yesterday was one of those days that you just find magical, shocking and chaotic. As you recall, we started the day off with a green rattlesnake calmly lounging on my mother’s red tiles at the bottom of her stair steps. It was fortunate she didn’t go out the front door and onto the sun deck and step down those stairs. Usually, she goes out the back door, thank goodness. And her cat, Mozart, who is fourteen years old and doesn’t have a clue that a snake could hurt him, didn’t amble dumbly down those wooden stairs, ether.

And Dave was ten feet away, throwing gravel out of the pick up onto the road surface because the weekly monsoons were making it a little muddier than usual. If the snake had slithered off the red tiles, it would have head directly beneath his pickup. And there was the chance as he leaped out of the bed, of landing near enough to get bit by it--and he’d never seen it go beneath the truck.

Lots of luck yesterday.

And after we put the snake in the snake bagger and released him, I thought the day would begin to wind down--but it didn’t. Which is why I’m using today’s blog to cover other incidents and events that occurred after I posted the July 20th blog!

After my hike, we buttoned up for the night by last minute watering on certain plants, closing up the greenhouse, getting the horse’s fly mask off, feeding her and locking her up for the night. There’s a lot of little chores around her before we can really call it a night. And usually, by that time, it really is dark!

As I was finishing up last night, I heard our two resident Great Horned Owls hooting to one another just across Oak Creek and near our house. It was nice to heart them. The female has a more melodic, softer hoot and the male has a longer, more dramatic and stronger hoot. It’s easy to tell them apart. I was wishing I could get photos of them, but the trees along Oak Creek are thick and profuse, not lending itself to find these two largest owls in the USA. Instead, I enjoyed their night calls to one another.

After listing the blog, I got ready to go to bed. It felt great to get the sweat and salt off my skin with a wonderfully hot bath. Sweating is such a normal thing in Arizona at this time of year and Dave can go through two or three t-shirts a day--just perspiring. Plus, we are having the hottest July on record--ugh--and that doesn’t help either.

I was walking quickly through the house to go to our bedroom. I zoomed down the hall and as I made a quick right turn into my book room, there on the ivory carpet was--

-- a tarantula!!

Yep, there he was. Looking terribly out of place on our ivory nubby carpet. I screeched to a halt, nearly falling over myself when I spotted him in the middle of the room.


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Now, put yourself in MY place and you saw THIS on your carpet! What would YOU have done??!!

“Now, what are you doing in HERE?” I asked him, putting my hands on my hips.


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Here's another angle of our 'friend' who visited us last night...think about that at night and you wouldn't see him on the way to the bathroom.....

He just sat there. A very young tarantula, he wasn’t really as big as the ones I see outdoors all the time on my hike. But, he was big enough to cover the palm of my hand and I don’t have small hands.

And then I wondered: Oh, geeze, how long has been in OUR house??!!!


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Here's our friendly neighborhood Tarantula who dropped by for a visit!

That was an uncomfortable question and I had no answer to it--which was even more uncomfortable. The only other time we had a tarantula come inside our home was shortly after we moved in. Dave was vacuuming the living room rug by the window. He moved some curtains aside and this huge golden abdomen female tarantula fell off the curtain. Dave let out a yelp, jumped six feet backward and couldn’t believe his eyes. The female tarantulas are golden bodied and are HUGE compared to their male counterparts. And this one was a grandmother--she could easily sit on a dinner plate and cover about 2/3rds of it with her 8-legged circumference!

It was me who found a bottle with a wide mouth to place over Grandmother and then gently and carefully slide a piece of cardboard beneath it to carry her outside. Tarantulas are very gentle spiders. They are very smart, too. As I think I said before, if you startle or scare the beejeusus out of one--it can leap SIX FEET in ANY DIRECTION. So, you stop and think about THAT possibility for a moment before you approach one.

They could leap on you and you’d be shrieking, screaming,flailing around and leaping out of YOUR skin if that happened!

Tarantulas rarely bite. And they are not poisonous, nor can they kill you; so those are all good things to keep in mind when dealing with one.

Also, Tarantulas survive mostly through their FEET. Their feet, all eight of ‘em, are highly sensitized to motion, vibration, taste, smell, and feel. Yes, Tarantulas have eyes and they can certainly see, too. But it’s their FEET that are their life and survival, really. That’s why, when one must capture one, you really want to be very careful and gentle with their little footsies...all eight of ‘em...

I told the male Tarantula to stay where he was and went to the pantry to get my glass and cardboard. Dave came along, in disbelief. “Doesn’t this stuff ever end tonight?” he asked. I laughed. I got my camera--made darned sure the card was in it this time because I was not going to allow two opportunities slip through my hands today....I’d lost shots of the beautiful green rattlesnake to no card in my Nikon.

Not this time! I double checked my camera and then took several shots. The Tarantula was not bothered by the flash of the camera, nor was he feeling in the least threatened. If they are feeling threatened, they stick their abdomens up in the air. But, he just sat there on our ivory carpet letting us take pictures.

When I was done, I told him mentally that I was going to have to carefully capture him in a large plastic cup--and that I would not hurt him--and that I’d release him out our front door. I knelt down quietly next to him--off to the side. And then I put the plastic glass over him, taking care not to mash, accidentally, one of his eight feet. Once that was done, I was even more careful sliding the cardboard beneath the mouth of the glass.

Once the cardboard nudged one of his feet, the Tarantula immediately ran up into the glass. It was easy, then, to put the cardboard over the end, tip it on its side and then carry him outside. The glass is fairly large and you can see my hands on either end of it. The ribbing on the glass magnifies the Tarantula, but you can still see him in there. He’s really a small one, considering everything.


Copyright David Nauman 2006
Here's my capture glass and I'm holding our visitor up so that can see through the plastic.

Outdoors, in the dark, I put the glass on the ground and took off the cardboard from the top of it. Tipping the glass up just a little, the Tarantula slide out and onto the ground. Again, he did not stick his butt up in the air as a threatening gesture. Nope, he just ambled off in Tarantula speed like nothing had ever happened to him! Tarantula’s walk in what I call ‘slow motion’; their legs are so long and hairy and they remind me of a ballerina moving one foot at a time. I never tire of watching a Tarantula walk; they are so graceful.

Of course, in bed that tonight you being to wonder: just how LONG has that Tarantula been in our house? The cats have, in the past, carried in a lot of lizards, small to large, a coach whip snake (that was fun to catch as he slithered in and around our couch!) But never a Tarantula. We know that Grandmother got in because we’d left the sliding screen door on the creek side open to our sun deck. I believe this one got in through another sliding screen on the sun deck near our spa--the door had been left ajar for a couple weeks for one of our cats, Bandy, who liked that way out of the house instead of through our cat door at another part of our home.

And laying there, you think: geeze, Tarantulas are active all NIGHT. They sleep in the day (which is why you’d never see them or find them in the house). And they come out at late dusk, when almost dark...which is what this one did. Luckily, I found it in the middle of the carpet--really hard to miss!

And then you think: getting up in the middle of the night to pee...and what if you STEPPED on him? I always ran to the bathroom, which sat across from the bedroom with the book room in between...in the DARK! I knew it by heart. However, the idea of stepping on a Tarantula you were not expecting to being the house--oh geeze!!!! They are so LARGE. And they have an armored exoskeleton so I can’t even begin to want to think what kind of cracking, crunching noise that would make--not to mention--to kill the gentle giant. I don’t know if I’d be more upset on stepping on one or killing it!

Your mind runs rampant to the fact that your bedding hangs on the floor....and what if the Tarantula was in our bedroom, crawled up that loose bedding and then was on OUR bed where WE slept! That kept me awake most of the night! I love spiders but not having a big, hairy giant come in slow motion to crawl over my arm, across my head or under the covers!!

And we really don’t know how long that Tarantula was in our house....


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Here are some of our orange Cana Lily shortly after our 20 minute monsoon in the canyon today...everyone was singing and saying thank you for the rain!

I do have one more Tarantula story....we actually had three visits from them so far, since living here. Dave and Grandmother was a whopper. I heard Dave’s shriek half a house away! I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so shaken up, hahahaha.


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Our colorful clown-faced Caladiums loved the rain. They were just stretching their little stem necks to get some of those life-giving drops of liquid.


The second time was at night...before we had a second bathroom built. I had to pee and it was around three a.m. as I blindly, half asleep, made it to the bathroom just off the kitchen. I didn’t bother turning on the light because it would wake me up. I sat down. There was moonlight streaming through the frilly curtains at the window to the left of me.

Something caught my attention. Dave had a wooden magazine rack where he placed his favorite reading material. I saw something dark sitting on top of the books--less than two inches from my thigh. Blinking several times, my eyes bad because I’m blind as a bath without my glasses, I squinted at the dark blob on top of the books. What was it? The moonlight got stronger as a cloud passed it and then, my eyes got huge. There, on top of the magazine rack, was the biggest male Tarantula I’d ever seen (then or now....). It was the size of my fist! And there was less than two inches separating him and me.

Now, consider this: you’re on the pot. And just where do you think you’re going to do in the middle of your business? And what if the Tarantula gets threatened? I’m only two inches away and there’s a wall on the opposite side of the spider. So where do I think he’ll leap if agitated? Why, on me! I sat there, frozen and contemplating my black bathroom humor of possibilities if this monster of a spider wanted to take one angling step toward me--he was so big that two inches was nothing and he could easily pick up one of his hairy, thick legs and touch me without really even trying.

I was stuck in more ways than one. I sat there talking mentally to the Tarantula, telling him I meant him no harm and would he please remain quiet and stand still? I didn’t even reach for the toilet paper dispenser which was less than six inches from where he sat, and a little above him. I did not want to startle him. What to do? What to do?

I was fully awake by now. WIDE awake! If i moved,it might startle the spider and he’d leap. Most likely in my direction since the wall was there. Where would I leap too? Not many places. If I leaped off the toilet and straight ahead, I ended up in the bath tub! My only way out was to the right and the bathroom door was open. And that’s the only way the spider could leap, too. The bath tub curtain was across the tub, so the spider, I’m sure, could see it as another wall. Nope, only one place to leap--at me--to the right.

I must have sat there for a good five minutes debating my options. A part of me wanted to jump off the toilet seat and race away. Another part said: “Dumb move,Eileen, you’ll rattle the spider and he’ll jump at you....”

argghgghhhhh! What do you do when your biggest desire is to RUN and you can’t? A toilet seat feels like being imprisoned. The bathroom, already small, feels like it’s closing in on you and I could hear the drums beating in time as the walls closed in around me....funny how at 3:00 a.m., your drowsy creative mind unravels all this scary stuff. To be rudely shaken out of deep sleep to see this giant spider two inches away from your thigh....well....you get the picture!

Finally, I couldn’t bear it any longer. I told the Tarantula I was going ease very quietly off the toilet seat and slowly move toward the door. Forget the toilet paper. Forget flushing the toilet. Forget standing up straight, too. If someone were filming this, I’m sure I looked like a slug oozing off the toilet seat very, very slowly. One hand was gripping the counter for balance. The other hand was pulled as far away from Spidey as I could get it. Time felt like it was holding its breath. I moved at a crawl, hoping that I made no sounds getting off the pot. I was hoping the toilet seat wouldn’t creak, either.

Like fog sliding down over a rock, I slid off the toilet seat in a mid-crouch, my pj’s around my ankles and thinking I was going to trip over them and kill myself anyway. I could see the headlines in the paper: Woman Falls off Toilet Seat and Dies In Fall....

The Tarantula could leap at ANY time. I knew that. I was scuttling along, my pj’s twisting around my ankles and making it difficult to inch forward hardly at all. I was in dire straights of tripping and falling flat on my face! My knuckles were white as I gripped the counter, still in my toilet seat crouch position. I thought: “Boy, this Tarantula's getting one hell of a scope of my butt!” I could not pull my pj’s up for fear of startling the spider and him leaping at me. I started giggling half way out of the bathroom imaging the huge,bulghy white, fleshy view the Tarantula had of me! What must HE be thinking? Was the newspaper headline going to read: “Tarantula Killed In Gas Attack By A Human...."

Somehow, I waddled, creeped, and awkwardly, like a duck caught up in duct tape, shuffled out of the bathroom and into the hall. The Tarantula was still sitting quietly on top of the magazine rack. Whew! Relief shot through me. Quickly, I grabbed my pj’s and yanked them up to my waist. I made a beeline for the big capture glass and cardboard that I kept in the pantry.

The Tarantula was so big he woudn’t fit inside it! Drat! By this time, of course, I had flipped on the bathroom light and poked my head cautiously around the corner to make sure he was still there. Yep, he was.

Wide awake now, I had to go out to the service porch to find a huge quart plastic jar with a wide mouth. I brought it back. The Tarantula wouldn’t fit in that, either! Double drat!

Muttering, completely awake now, I went stalking and prowling like a dog on a hunt around our house trying to find something large enough to capture this bathroom intruder. I finally settled on a one-gallon red plastic bucket. Somehow, I was going to have to encourage the spider into the bucket--but then--he could leap out of it, too. I brought along a towel large enough to throw over the top of it.

All this maneuvering and figuring out took me until about 3:30 a.m. and by the time I let the Tarantula loose out in the moonlight of our orchard, I was so wide awake it was senseless trying to go back to sleep. So, I stayed up, made myself some early morning coffee and read a good book. When Dave got up the next morning around seven a.m., he wanted to know what I was doing out in the living room at this hour reading. Boy, did I have a story to tell him!!!


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
This is the first time I've seen veils of rain from Thunder Beings at sunset--a gorgeous fuschia color!

The hike out of the canyon tonight was monsoons all around us. Earlier in the day, we got a good 20 minute soaking! And as I hiked up and out tonight, more rain. It felt delicious against the heat. By the time Rocky and I got up to Sunset Point, we were in for a wonderful surprise! I hope you enjoy the photos!


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
This is a panorama shot. The veils of rain from the Thunder Beings are turning pink because the slant of the sun is below the horizon. It is just an incredibly beautiful shot--I've never seen rain veils at sunset turn colors...lucky me...I got to experience it tonight!


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
Here's an earlier shot with the sun going down--looks like an 'eye'

In Spirit....