Something to give you nightmares...

Dynamo came running in to me while I was making dinner this evening shouting, “Mum, Mum, come and look at the spider with a million babies on its back!”

I thought it would be typical Dynamo exaggeration – a spider with maybe one or two of its young. I wasn’t prepared for this creature from a nightmare. It just had to have its picture taken.

I’m not fond of these spiders. They’re called Wolf Spiders (or 'Wolfies') and though they’re not particularly poisonous, their bites do pack quite a wallop. I got bitten by a small one once and the lump on my finger itched for months (serves me right for gardening without gloves). They live in the ground and under anything they can find and if you go out at night with a torch you can see their eyes shining as two tiny blue lights every few feet, as they sit in the grass waiting for prey to pass by. Creepy.

Normally the female (I presume, don’t quote me) carries the egg sac around with her. I guess this one’s egg had just hatched. There must have been over a hundred tiny little spiderlings jumping off her back then back on again. Ugh, that means a hundred more of the horrible things to crawl into the house and scare the wits out of me when I pick something up off the floor.

Have you ever seen anything more nightmarish? I don’t think I’ll go to sleep tonight.

Even spiders can be beautiful

We've been having some really strange weather lately. Given the early start to the cropping season this year, P should have just about finished harvest by now. Instead he's hardly started, having spent the last couple of weeks watching the rain come down. Nothing too heavy, thank goodness. But enough to make it impossible to harvest. We've been pretty lucky really. Parts of the Wheatbelt have totally lost their crops to rain and hail (after years of drought).

Now, at last, the sun is shining and there's a hint of summer in the air. This morning I actually had to water my garden, er...my weed patch. That's where I saw proof that summer is on its way. Near the tap I found a web with three 'Christmas spiders' sitting in it. Very neighbourly they looked. Then I found another in a bush. They don't have their Christmas colours all year, just around Christmas, hence their name. I'm not normally keen on spiders, but I have to admit that these are very pretty.

Now the only problem is that if the Christmas spiders are here, the Christmas beetles will be here soon too. They're not pretty at all. They're little brown beads that bombard you if you try to go outside at night, or invade your house if you're silly enough to leave the door open. Very annoying. Oh well, maybe the ducks will enjoy them.