Friday, August 22, 2008

storm update and creepy crawly question

Although Fay is still hovering over Florida, we missed the brunt of it. Monday night was probably the worst in our area. Ironically, the tree in our front yard didn't fall over until the next night. Yesterday, some guys came by to right it and stake it for support. But the ground is still so soggy that a couple of hours later, it was already leaning almost 45 degrees again. Guess I will be calling and asking them to come back and do it again.



Now,for the creepy crawly question. Does anyone know what kind of spider this is? It's made a home outside our breakfast area. Then Stretch made the mistake of dubbing it "Homer" so the kids refer to it as a pet of sorts. The problem is I haven't been able to identify it or whether it's poisonous. We just don't go out to the patio right now. It's hard to tell in the picture, but Homer is BIG. So, if anyone knows what this is, I'd love to know, too!

6 comments:

Amy75 said...

I’m scared. I’m trying to think of Charlotte’s Web to calm myself down. You should have warned us NOT to click on the photo. It has little tufts of hair on its very long legs.

Linda said...

Homer is a Golden Orb Spider:

http://www.digitalapoptosis.com/archives/CRC/GoldenOrb.jpg

Now you can do some more research on him!

Jody said...

I agree with Linda. Homer is a Golden Orb Spider. I laughed out loud when I read that "some Golden Orb spiders display an almost manic fear of cockroaches" on this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_silk_orb-weaver

That said, I do not like spiders and I would first exterminate Stretch and then the spider!!!

Marine Wife said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marine Wife said...

Thanks, ladies! I guess Homer is a girl. And I think Stretch should be the one to evict her...

Oh, and Amy, turns out they are sometimes referred to "writing spiders." ;D

Anonymous said...

We got a lot of orb weavers in Shreveport when I was a kid. My dad never let us kill them (they were always outside already). I don't think they usually bite, but all spiders can. (or most, right?) Depends on how sensitive you are and how potent their venom is. These aren't like what we have around here (back widows and fiddle backs/brown recluses out the ying yang!)