In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that Hume Lake isn’t perfect. We knew when we bought our cabin that it was in the great outdoors, which was its main appeal but also had its drawbacks; namely: bears, mountain lions, snakes, spiders, ants, raccoons. The bears don’t bother me because they rarely come to the cabin area and they’re harmless to humans unless you try to take back the portable cooler they’re digging into. The mountain lions will eat you, but I don’t believe in them (despite the warning signs to the contrary), so until one of my neighbors gets eaten I’ll live in ignorant bliss. The only snake I’ve seen was dead…Terminix takes care of the ants for us…and the raccoons just leave cute footprints on the deck when they try to get into the bird feeder. So that leaves the spiders.
I never knew spiders came in so many shapes and sizes until we bought our cabin. Big, little, skinny, fat, black, brown, furry, glossy – they all live in the forest. And – if they can get in – they LOVE cabins. The worst time of year for finding spiders in our cabin is spring. Spiders like it quiet, so I think all of the people coming and going in the summer keeps them out. And in the winter they must be hibernating, because we see very few. But whenever we show up in the spring, it’s like a National Geographic special on spiders in our cabin. The cabin has been closed up for 3 months, so it’s been dark and quiet – just the way they like it. The first place I find them is in the kitchen sink – they like to build webs across the sink. I quickly dispatch them down the drain. Then I move through the house, with a fly swatter in hand, carefully inspecting each room: moving the sofa cushions, scanning the ceiling, etc. GWH isn’t much help with this job. I’ve asked him to inspect the downstairs, only to have him come up and tell me he didn’t find anything. Then, somehow, when I go downstairs, the first thing I see is Shelob staring me in the face. So I’ve learned not to trust anybody else for this search & destroy mission.
When we showed up for our first weekend this spring, I went through the cabin quickly and sent a few spiders to their eternal reward. Then, I continued with the kitchen unpacking/organizing while GWH was getting a fire going in the fireplace. I picked up a bag off the floor in the pantry and...”AAIIEEEEEEEEEEE”…I screamed like a girl. There was a spider in the corner of the pantry, as big as the palm of my hand. As GWH came running, I started shrieking, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!” (I’m sure that was very productive). GWH grabbed some paper towels and I helpfully screamed, “Don’t let it get away!” (I was envisioning it disappearing into a crack, although it seemed a little large for that sort of escape). Thankfully, it did NOT get away so it could come back and haunt me later. Lest you think I’m exaggerating the size of this thing, GWH even commented, “That WAS a big spider; it was almost a tarantula.”
I’m a little edgy when I open the pantry door these days.
I hope you’ll all come visit me at the cabin some spring weekend.