Help with spiders, please!

[Tina Gibson]

I knew someone would bite...and amuse me.

[animaux]

I solved that problem by using a bamboo pole for the daily morning walks through the gardens. I prod up ahead and if there are webs I try not to disturb them. Fortunately, the large orb spiders nest and web on or near the plants which attract grasshoppers. I don't kill spiders. Black widow or brown recluse, if found in the garage or near our house are put into a jar and released way in the back corner of the yard. I see no reason to kill them.

Victoria

[animaux]

V :)

[limey]

Ugh, ugh, ugh! Well, I don't have roaches either, but we do get ants marching into the house in spring and fall. Those spiders are certainly lying down on the job at those times. Another poster says they catch snakes? Good lord, how big are those spiders?

Dora

[Tina Gibson]

Yay Victoria!! We don't have any poisonous spiders in our area - just the regular type that only itch if they bite. We probably have a bazillion in the yard and in the house - but I made my peace with spiders yrs ago. They are beautiful creatures and do us a great service - inside and out. Of course my cats love them too and often spend hrs in the woodpile in the basement (for woodstove) during the long winter nights hunting them - so the balance is kept - I don't need to step in. I don't believe it is up to me to knowingly kill anything - I like to grow things and help them thrive- not destroy them. That is why I am a gardener. We are all here to procreate and perpetuate our own species and I for one will not knowingly kill without purpose!! Now if anyone had a good recipe for spider stew and we were going hungry....

[animaux]

How about these teeney babies?

by the pool

[Tina Gibson]

very cool!

[Frogleg]

I haven't bitten anyone in *years*. Happy to hear you're amused.

[Steve Carras]

Hi, this is my first post here. Going thru Google for articles on grasshoppers, found a Victoria who had fears of them as I sometimes do..

I;m so glad that she's still here (when I checked for her messages they were no later than 1999) since I tend to sometimes share the same fear she does,esp.as a kid. She's in good company regarding grasshopper worries. Out here in SOuthern California we can gwet them about 5 inches (the books on insects in the area understate hopper sizes at about 2 and a half inches at the most..I know that, legs strecthing behind the thorax notwithstanding that hoppers are AT least

5 inches given one of Victori'a posts some years ago.

[Harvey]

Spiders are not insects. The are arachnides, which are arthropods, & have 8 legs not 6.

Harvey

[Steve Carras]

And judging by the e-mail name Animaux, it's the same one..I wasn't on this NG back when the topic used to come up...I still see hopper ..and katydid (iklove going up to 'em and saying "did Katy do it?")