Curse of the Black Widow!!!

[Insanad]

One of my fears about the whole wood vs non wood issue is the spider deal. Every fall when we help my mom stack wood on her back porch there seems to be a lot of creepy crawlies and black widows nested in the wood. WHen she brings the wood in the house she also brings the spiders. She uses gloves and has never been bitten but I HATE spiders, especially big ugly hairy taloned things and can't sleep when I know one is in the house. One time a tiny yellow spider broke my tailbone. It's true. I'd tell all about it if asked.

Does it cause the wood to smell or be too volitile to cover it with a tarp and bug bomb it now and again?

 

[rathmir]

Um...

don't use insecticides...would you like it if your neighbors put all kinds of burned toxic chemicals into the air with their smoke?

most spiders are completely harmless and beneficial to people...

a black widow bite won't kill you

dont store wood inside and you won't have this problem..go straight from the outdoor pile to the stove

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I agree.

Now let's hear that story of the broken tailbone.

 

[Insanad]

Do you know what kind of horrors you've unleashed by taking the bait for a story? Some never recover. These stories have been attributed to serious cases of eye bleeding and anal leakage, not to mention the frontal lobe damage they induce. BUT since you read the label and are willing to imbibe, then here goes:

One day many years ago when I was pregnant with my second child I was rollerblading as I was pushing my son in his stroller. When we finished the stroll I took the blades off and dropped them in front of the dresser and proceeded to get ready for bed. I donned my best pink nighty and hopped into bed and was about to turn off the light when I noticed a tiny yellow spider busily spinning a web near the light fixture, directly overhead. I turned off the light and tried to sleep but the thoughts of that nasty spider dropping down in the middle of the night and sucking all my blood out while simultaneously planting it's eggs in my nostrils started to bug me, literally. So I turned the light back on, grabbed a bottle of hair spray and stood on the bed and sprayed at the spider.

The gigantic horrific hairy venemous beast dropped straight down onto my face and in my quick graceful agile gazelle like motions, I jumped back like I was on a bungee cord and went straight off the back of the bed, hit the dresser with my shoulders and then slumped right down on my ample arse onto the roller blades. My tailbone was cracked but not nearly as messed up as my pride.

The little tiny yellow spider just scurried off laughing his thorax off at how he/she/it bested the behemoth in the pink nighty. I spent the next three months sitting on a foam donut thingy and when folks would ask how I cracked my tailbone I lied and said I'd done it rollerblading.

 

[johnsopi]

There are lots of spiders in woodpiles plus mice and every other insect you can think of.

 

[Rockey]

Do you know what kind of horrors you've unleashed by taking the bait for a story? Some never recover. These stories have been attributed to serious cases of eye bleeding and anal leakage, not to mention the frontal lobe damage they induce. BUT since you read the label and are willing to imbibe, then here goes:

One day many years ago when I was pregnant with my second child I was rollerblading as I was pushing my son in his stroller. When we finished the stroll I took the blades off and dropped them in front of the dresser and proceeded to get ready for bed. I donned my best pink nighty and hopped into bed and was about to turn off the light when I noticed a tiny yellow spider busily spinning a web near the light fixture, directly overhead. I turned off the light and tried to sleep but the thoughts of that nasty spider dropping down in the middle of the night and sucking all my blood out while simultaneously planting it's eggs in my nostrils started to bug me, literally. So I turned the light back on, grabbed a bottle of hair spray and stood on the bed and sprayed at the spider.

The gigantic horrific hairy venemous beast dropped straight down onto my face and in my quick graceful agile gazelle like motions, I jumped back like I was on a bungee cord and went straight off the back of the bed, hit the dresser with my shoulders and then slumped right down on my ample arse onto the roller blades. My tailbone was cracked but not nearly as messed up as my pride.

The little tiny yellow spider just scurried off laughing his thorax off at how he/she/it bested the behemoth in the pink nighty. I spent the next three months sitting on a foam donut thingy and when folks would ask how I cracked my tailbone I lied and said I'd done it rollerblading.

On average a person swallows 7 spiders while sleeping over the span of their lives. I'm just saying.

 

[Metal]

"On average a person swallows 7 spiders while sleeping over the span of their lives. I'm just saying."

Snopes says "NOPE."

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.asp

 

[Rockey]

"On average a person swallows 7 spiders while sleeping over the span of their lives. I'm just saying."

Snopes says "NOPE."

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.asp

Obviously an opportunity to have some real fun has been lost here.

 

[rathmir]

Yeah, some people just don't know how to have a good time....at the expense of the squeamish

 

[Insanad]

Not so fast now Rockey. I've can handle straight shooters like nobodies business and eventually they come around to the funnin and start to catch on. You've got to prepare them for a joke with some sort of preface like a smiley face or other clues, then as they become accustomed to reading the nuances, they can kick that part of the brain in that recognizes mirth. (that's for those who need a warning)

-------I've heard the spider theory and in spite of the Snopes thing I still sleep with my mouth closed. My husband on the other hand could swallow a whole load of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and never know the difference. He takes great pride in his snoring capabilities and blows out as much as he takes in, so if a spider did manage to drop down it would get shot across the room in short order. I've had to resort to putting a pillow over his face many times, and that's just to get him in the mood. (another warning of impending humor)

 

[Rockey]

Yeah I'm so bored now Im going to throw a bag of spiders and toe nail clippings in the microwave. That stuff doesn't bother me, I eat it. I put mustard on it and eat the shiat.

 

[Insanad]

So do the spiders make a popping noise when they cook? My son has done all sorts of boyish experiments on large bugs in the microwave as well as metal things (note to self, do not let son near microwave). He was impressed with the speed at which a grasshopper would explode. Do the toenail clippings crisp up in the microwave? I prefer them oven toasted but I suppose in a pinch if guests were coming I'd resort to microwaving them. Nothing beats just chowing down on a big bowl of fresh popped spiders and toenail clippings on a cold wintery night. Ahhh, the memories. I wonder why they haven't written a song about that, aka "Spiders roasting over an open fire, clippings nipping at my nose". You get on that and let me know how it comes out.

 

[savageactor7]

Spiders have to live too...fear God dread naught.

 

[PapaDave]

Found this gal last summer as I was moving some stacks from the back field.

 

[LLigetfa]

Spiders bring good luck and are beneficial. Spiders are treated like sacred cows in our house. That said, we never have any spiders come in with the wood. I think the mice and the snakes in the wood pile keep the spiders away.

 

[Insanad]

Well now I'll be having some more nightmares. Good luck aside, they creep me out considerably. if they stay outside I give them their leeway but in the house I feel inclined to send them to their maker, or wherever Spiders go when their face meets their abdomen. Last night I was cleaning some paper up behind the couch and a huge black spider scared the be-jezzus out of me (which left yet another mess but I won't go into the details). I had to liberate it from it's ugliness.

We have a lot of black widows here in the Southwest and most of them are pretty shy but I have been bitten on the ankle by one or another kind of poisonous spider and it left a pretty nasty wound and scar that got all goey and puss filled and hurt like the devil.

I should probably stop cleaning the wood pile in my flip flops though, now that I think about it. I was going to say Thongs, but that conjures up all sorts of bizarre images.

 

[LLigetfa]

I was going to say Thongs, but that conjures up all sorts of bizarre images.

I don't think this guy was wearing a thong.

splittin wood and spiders what a day

 

[Insanad]

That was a gruesome story and the poor dude got it twice!

When I got bit on the ankle it hurt immediately, then swelled up fairly quickly and filled the vessels around it with a sort of yellow puss which oozed and stunk. I did go to the Dr. and got a shot and they drained some of the gunk but it was very painful for several days and left a small hole in my ankle like a little b-b wound. It itched for more than a year.

The ones I see bug me but it's the ones I don't see that keep me creeped out and anxious. They come indoors in November and stay through the winter so we always check our shoes or anything that's been left on the floor overnight. We have black widows, brown recluse, and I've heard of wolf and violin spiders occasionally. The low desert deals with a lot of scorpions but I've never seen them in the high desert much. We have tarantulas as well but they're huge and easy to see and usually stay out in the brush. They are actually quite interesting, as long as they're not in the house.

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Insanad- Spiders, of ALL varieties have rights! They can travel/ visit where they wish, regardless of your "profiling". Sounds to me that you're on the south side of I-15, so you better make room. They're coming.- (you have no idea how much I appreciate your humor, on this forum.)

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Oh yeah, no problems with burinig Pine. Even fresh cut- standing dead will cook you out of the room . (Only because of the ceiling/roof being on fire- because you chose to burn Pine)

 

[Insanad]

Thanks Colorado person. Yes, you nailed my location. Go to Google and look for the Kolobs, then imagine a tiny Shang-ri-la across the valley and that's where we are.

This forum was just an accidental happenstance and has given me some very useful information that I plan to incorporate, but mostly I just think it's very entertaining to see how much men seem to be able to talk about their wood. Pages and pages of discussions about wood, woody things, long wood, short wood, fat wood, smooth wood. Wood wood wood. It is a thing of beauty and fortunately for me, completely renewable.

On that note, I'll leave you to polish your wood for the weekend.

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Sleep well, knowing that in the short term, polishing a large split of soft-wood ,will eventually turn it into a split of hard-wood. Prehistorically speaking.

 

[Cluttermagnet]

On average a person swallows 7 spiders while sleeping over the span of their lives. I'm just saying.

Well, perhaps not, but I did wake up one morning with a stinging in my right eye. I pulled out what I believe was a spider leg, which I carefully wrapped in a tissue to take to the Opthamologist. A small area of the white of my eye was very puffy and swollen. It looked awful, very alarming. I thought it was way worse than it actually was, but the doc told me I had an "acute chemosis" (kee-mo-sis) of the eye and it would recover. And so it did. But it did scare the bejeebers out of me, and I do believe a hapless and harmless spider walked across my face while I was sleeping and lost (at least) a leg because I blinked. I probably did take a little spider venom to the eye.

We don't have Widows or Recluses in this area, thank goodness. All our local spiders are pretty harmless. I definitely see a constant stream of them on the wood I bring inside. I always try to avoid hurting them, though I do have the reflex to brush them off of me very fast when I feel them crawling.

If you have poisonous spiders in your area, your apprehensions are at least partly justified. If being overly phobic is causing you problems, however, something really constructive you could do is to learn "EFT". Google it on the net. A sort of 'self- hypnosis'/ 'self therapy' technique involving the energy meridians on the body which is surprisingly effective. Somewhat akin to accupuncture, which, BTW, is now accepted by the Federal government as effective for treating certain conditions. Check it out (EFT).

 

[ROBERT F]

To heck with the black widows, its the brown recluse that scares me. Black widows might hurt or make you sick, but a relitively painless bite from a brown recluse that causes your tisue to decay from the inside untill you lose appendages if left untreated! Now thats a spider to fear!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

So do the spiders make a popping noise when they cook?

No, they don't. But remember the next time you are burning a nice fire and you hear all that popping and sparks flying....that is nothing more than termite turds exploding.