Spider season

You know when you have something you carry or use many times per day, but there's something about it that irks you a little bit each and every time you use it? A tiny struggle to open, or difficult to extract, or hard to hold...something? My handbags have been like that.

I've bought about 5 handbags over the last two years and none of them have suited. I switched from using a backpack to handbags and I've never been satisfied, quite. I hate to have cumulative aggravations during the day. I'm aggravated by enough things already (noise, other people, the wrong temperature, clothing, and so on, lol). I don't need to be aggravated by the thing that I have to carry everywhere with me.

I don't need a huge bag because I don't carry that much, but I do have to carry my wallet, checkbook, Kindle, cell phone, glasses repair kit, pens, and cough drops. See? Not so much.

On Vipon (the Amazon.com discount couponing site) I saw Messenger Bags on sale for half off. I LOVE a messenger bag! As with backpacks, kinda mannish, messenger bags are too. (I do not like lady fru-fru stuff). I bought it for $12. The canvas is sturdy but supple. The pressure points like where you grab it or the corners or the zipper, are reinforced with leather. There are several pockets outside and in. I can carry it cross body, which I like to do at the grocery store. Hey,have you ever watched those security camera vids where someone steals a wallet out of your purse, or steals the purse, /snap/ LIKE THAT? Cross body, man, with the pockets and zipper against your hip.

Here is a pic. I personally think messenger bags are stylish and cool.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I take nice photos of the yard I love so much and post a lot of them everywhere. That's because it's a pretty yard, with flowers and birds and trees.

But the yard holds a deadly secret. Its allure belies a malignancy that is only revealed in certain seasons and at certain times a day. When the sun rises and the rays are low, the interconnecting mesh of Ninja-dance inducing spider webs all across the yard are revealed!

From tree to tree, from branch to ground, at FACE LEVEL, we see the threads of heart-pumping horror glimmer in the rising rays of the sun, only to fade into the background mere moments later. Unsuspecting amblers striding these greenways will soon feel the full horror of the stickily detestable threads as they, too, inevitably begin to Ninja-dance their way back to the safety of the house.

Having walked into one too many webs in my day, I keep a spider web busting stick by my front door. Spiders have dared, yes, dared, to stream their dance of horror webs across the awning in front, so the stick is always at hand's reach as I cautiously open the door a few inches to grab it first.

Wielding my stick like a nutcase, fie, no matter how I appear to others, my stick dances like a crazy divining rod hovering over water. Jerking it to the left and right in front of my face, I crab walk toward the garage where my car hides inside, hunkered safely from its likely use as a web-foundation string for the more daring and skillful spiders attempting to use it as part of their deadly scheme. Indeed, just the other day I opened the door to the car, after having left it out for the night, and a gossamer thread attached to the mirror wafted away. Fortunately the wind was blowing in the other direction and the thread sailed on into the yard and not into my face. That was a close one.

They proliferate in September, the time to reproduce and hatch new babies before the frosts get 'um. The egg sacs overwinter. At the Cooperative Extension at the University of Georgia, we read,

Barn spiders are to blame for creating the webs most often walked into by people. “I would bet that almost every home in Georgia has a barn spider on the porch or somewhere nearby this time of year,” she said. Hinkle has one on her deck, one at her back door, and one at her front door. They’re handy to keep around, she said. Being nocturnal, they construct new webs every evening, where they wait to trap insects. Rusty brown with legs extending 2 inches, they’re noticeable this time of year.

“Their webs trap all sorts of flying pests,” she said. “People get annoyed when they walk into these webs and get silk covering their faces, but I consider that a people problem, not a spider problem.”

NO, IT'S A SPIDER PROBLEM!

The yellow garden spider and the orb-weaver both make large webs, too. Ugh.

OK, so some say that they're good to have around to trap lots of insects in their massive webs, but either you've got lots of insects in your yard, or lots of spiders. Problem, if you ask me.

I wonder if there will be spiders in the new earth? If so, then maybe God will have given me enough grace to, er, love them? For now, I just stay inside until the frost comes and it's safer to walk around the yard.

Have a good weekend everyone, and watch out for spider webs!