animals everywhere

Today is the wildlife edition of my blog. As I may have previously mentioned, we have squirrels, and possibly other furry beasties living in the attic. So I called up some folks to come take him away. Easy, right? So they went through the attic, crawled under the house, went up on the roof, looked at all the places critters could get in, told me how they'd fix the holes, put fence over the vents, etc. etc. And then they gave me a shiny pamphlet they insta-printed in their truck, which had all the photos they had taken (oh yes - they took photos) of the various points of entry, rodent damage, etc. And they gave me a quote to make it all go away. I had been steadily increasing my guess as to how much they were going to ask for as he continued to explore the house. But two thousand six hundred dollars was still more than I had expected. I'm afraid my poker face didn't work, as he gave me the 'I'll give you time to think about it' look.

So that's the rodents. Then there's the spiders. I thought we had another black widow, hanging out on the front porch, so I grabbed the camera to get some pictures. It wasn't a black widow, as it turned out, but the pics turned out very well, I thought. Be warned if giant images of spiders freak you out, don't open that link.

Jason commented:
Gorgeous pic! But what camera are did you use? As to the critters, what about becoming a do-it-yourself-er? I think that for poisonous spiders, it's a good idea to have a professional take care of things, but couldn't you work on other things yourself?
on Tue Sep 23 12:20:39 2008

Lisa Dugdale commented:
Teehee, Jason. You just gave me a great mental image of David chasing squirrels and rats around the attic. "Here squirrly squirrly..."    Ah, the joys of homeownership....
on Tue Sep 23 13:24:25 2008

sasha commented:
I love that you warn people not to follow the link if they find giant spiders scary, and yet you put up a giant spider photo on the front page of your blog.  Admittedly, it's not quite so clear as the other photo, so perhaps people who find it scary can convince themselves that it's just a shadow puppet...
on Tue Sep 23 13:49:03 2008

David commented:

You know, we were going to DIY the whole rodent thing, but we can't seem to get the thing to come out of his hidey hole - I have a trap set up, but he isn't at all interested in the tasty food I put in it. The other problem is tools - I don't have a big enough ladder to reach some of the spots. The key, at least to me, is closing the obvious spots, and getting rid of the current tenants, but I do see the logic in getting the whole darned thing closed up.

The pic was taken with my currently on ebay Pentax K100D.

Finally, I thought the silhouette was slightly less shocking than the photo itself. But yeah - not a lot, perhaps....

on Tue Sep 23 14:46:55 2008

Shelby commented:

Oh no, black widows are shiny, not hairy. Also, they're black ;).

 

And totally unrelated, I thought of you when I saw this t-shirt:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_1&listing_id=10583605

on Tue Sep 23 16:37:16 2008

Nikki commented:
Not funny, David. Not funny at all.
on Wed Sep 24 20:52:06 2008

Terry commented:
I have a series of photos of a similar spider taken with a 10x macro lens at 2 inches. Nice shot Dave. http://druid69.deviantart.com/art/preying-39764315
on Thu Sep 25 08:28:07 2008

David commented:
Nice. In about 4 hours my zoom lens will be sold on ebay, so I'll have to acquire a new one before any more spider pics are taken. Thankfully, the spider shows no interest in leaving the front porch, so I'll have the opportunity for more. I was pleased when the pest control guy also was impressed at the size of the spider.
on Fri Sep 26 11:01:25 2008

Anonymous commented:
i believe that may be a wolf spider, but don't quote me on it - the eat the black widows I am told, and they like mosquitoes too...good luck. sarah
on Sat Sep 27 12:35:28 2008

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