Doin’ the Spider Dance at Midnight

May 22, 2014 · Filed under Uncategorized

I suddenly realized about midnight that my White Rock hens were not locked up and, more importantly, I had no feed in the pen for when they wake in the morning. After the eggs are laid for the day sometime in the late afternoon (these girls are late layers rather than early layers), I open the gate to their pen to allow them to roam free and dine on weeds and bugs. I forgot to lock my hens up safely for the night a couple weeks ago, and one disappeared. All that was left was a few white feathers. Since a red fox lives in the wooded patch directly in front of us, I fear that my large, gentle hen was the dinner guest of honor in a fox den.

I grumped my way outside to get a scoop of feed. Inside the pen, three ducks had decided to spend the night as well. The three of them would eat as much as a whole pen of White Rocks, so I was chasing them around to try to get them out. They didn’t WANT to go out. They wanted to stay inside and eat. As I was chasing the ducks out, I ran face first into a spider web.

Did I mention my spider phobia?

I went into my full rehearsal for Dancing With the Spastics. I was jumping around, brushing off my face, waving my hands, and screaming “getitoffmegetitoffmegetitoffme”. The chickens started squawking loud distress cries because whatever scared me, they wanted no part of. I can see their point. If, for example, I was being held captive by a giant human-eating T. Rex that suddenly, in the middle of feeding my village their rations for the next day, started doing a frenzied screaming dance all over the food, I’d probably be perturbed as well. Then the beam of light from the flashlight that I still held in one hand crossed my vision at about chest level, and I saw it. Apparently this spider was some sort of Special Forces golden orb spider, for it was grimly and determinedly climbing that web attached across my face, and was heading straight up to my nose. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!! That spastic dance with weird gesticulations got shifted into overdrive. I added leaps and pirouettes. The spider fell almost the ground, then started climbing again. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! More leaps, pirouettes, and waving motions. I nearly took my own nose off with the flashlight as I was slapping at the spider. Eventually the spider decided that maybe it should abandon the biggest fly it had ever caught in its web, and make its way to safety.

I suppose I better go strip, burn my clothing, and take another shower just to be sure its gone.