It's The Little Things....

Hi Everyone

Well, I’m not quite finished with my eight-legged tales. I just love how the Universe works. I’m wrapping up for the night in my office, shutting down the computer after posting the blog and getting ready to go to bed.

I turn and shut off the radio, and then head out the door. As I head out the door, I see a dark flash near the carpet on my left. At the same time, something hits me in the trouser on my left, lower leg. I stop, frown and look down. It’s ANOTHER Tarantula!!!

I groaned, “Oh, no...are you BACK???!!!”


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
He's BAAACKKK.....see that Tarantula? He's right inside my office! And he just leaped up on my leg! And fell off.

Taking a better look at this male Tarantula, he decidedly NOT the same one I put outside last night. Still, that makes TWO Tarantulas in our house!

And what happened tonight is I think the Tarantula was between the wall and the desk and I startled him and he leaped at me, struck my pant leg and fell off to the carpet!

Sheesh! Enough is enough!


So, I quickly got my trusty Nikon and took two shots to prove the story and then went and got my capture glass and he waited for me. I took him outside and put him even farther away than the first one!

Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
You can see this one has a lighter, almost cream colored shield on his back unlike the first one from the other night. About the same size, too. I think they both got in the back spa doorwhen it was accidentally left open one night--and they trunedled right into the house thinking they had swell digs!

I’m almost afraid to see what tonight will bring. Is there a THIRD Tarantula lurking somewhere around in our bedroom or office? Egads....

Today was a day of little things. For instance, Dave got the steel wire, a needle and we sat out on either side of the window screen enclosure around the main garden. What were we doing? Sewing up tears that had occurred in the screen. I had an animal--probably a skunk--come into the garden night before last. The reason I know is that there were two of my tomatoes, one green and one half ripe, eaten and laying on the red tile walks. I wasn’t happy at all about that. But we had plenty of entry points that we’d not attended too--and so I asked Dave to put in a new lower board on the screen door, plus, stapling the screen that tore loose from heavy monsoon winds at the base of the wood frame. We must have spent a good hour, each on one side of the screen, passing the needle with the fine, thin, steel thread back and forth.

It may sound boring, but I enjoy working with Dave. He’s my best friend and it’s a way to spend time with him. We work well together; we’re like two old work horses in a harness. We got the frame and the window screen all fixed, stapled back down and sewed up; and that ‘s a job that won’t have to be done for several more years unless or until we get another raging monsoon that can do damage to it.

The hike tonight was quiet. After so many exciting nights and days, I find there’s always a ‘down’ cycle, line a sine wave going up and down, to the up cycle. The sunset was a thin ribbon of orange against a very dark gray sky. Sometimes the monsoon clouds are very heavy and thick on the horizon. And when they are, you don’t get very pretty sunsets.

There’s an red ant hill up at Sunset Point. I make a point of carrying a snack on me--usually nuts, a protein bar--in case I get a hypoglycemic plunge. The last few nights, I’ve put some cashews and pinion nuts at the openings to this ant hill. It’s just a nice way to gift your neighbors. These are what they call ‘harvester’ ants--they are great garbage girls--they pick up all the seeds or anything edible and take it into their mound. When I put the nuts down for them they come bailing out of their holes in a swarm. Within 30 seconds, you can’t see the nuts--there’s so many red bodies swarming over them!

We have the mysterious and unique Desert Toads around here.....they hibernate in the mud, under ground, for 9 months out of the year. Usually, in July, they come out to mate. We have several around but I’m missing shots of them--every time I see them--I don’t have my camera with me! They have poison glands on either side of their heads. And stupid teenagers lick these glands thinking they’re going to get a hallucinogenic ‘high’ from it. What they get is a ride to the morgue. Stupid kid tricks...what ARE they thinking??? Well, actually, they aren’t, that’s the problem.


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2000
Here is "Esmerelda" our Desert Toad. She used to visit us every night for three months out of the year. That's another story for another time. She's photographed sitting on our sundeck with some of our crystals I have around some of the pots. She was a sweetie!

One of these evenings, me and the Desert Toad will meet. There’s one up at our barn and one down by the front door. Dave almost stepped on it tonight by accident. And then he called me and by the time I got out there with the camera, the toad was gone. Patience.....I’ll get a photo sooner or later.

I had a lovely lunch with my friend, Linda M. at Murphy’s Grill today. We’re both on the Rosedale Diet (that’s a blog of its own) and I made up one of his salad dressings. That way, we didn’t get the bad fat in the restaurant dressing, we got the good stuff in the one I made. Misery loves company. Linda appreciated the salad dressing and it really was yummy on our salmon salads. Again, it’s the little things in life that I so appreciate. The important things are usually little things.


Copyright Eileen Nauman 2006
This is a sunset that comes closet to tonights, which was very piddly...but it is orange!

In Spirit....