Spiders

NfK She would be Doris, of course.

Hunt Is that London Zoo? There are several of them around (both courses and zoos)

I don't think that anyone has mentioned that the Zoo run a day course for arachnophobes and apparently you can finish the day with a tarantula on your hand and feeling quite comfortable about it. Now there's a suggestion for a Christmas present!

Interesting to hear of other spiders called Boris because that's what we call ours. Now I know how to sex a spider, I'll try to catch it next time it appears as I suspect by the size, it's female - Borisina? It's nice to have her/him around as s/he eats all other spiders daring to come in and is often to be found guarding a corpse.

Did anyone see Autumn Watch last night when they did a piece about spiders and showed horrible close-ups!
They look vile, I hate close-ups of any insects.

thanks for the welcome whenim64!

Ana...ditto.

No, it doesn't help, Milly! I know my fear of spiders is irrational, so no amount of cajoling will persuade me that spiders are cuddly, family-orientated creatures who mean me no harm!

DS says he knows what the weather is going to be like by watching the spiders. He told me weeks ago that we were going to have a harsh winter because the spiders were in the house, we had a good covering of snow last night and it is freezing cold. I have never known it snow this early before, it did on November 6th 1965 and we thought that unusual.

Many years ago when the world was young, my husband and I wrote a musical play for children. He was a composer and I wrote the words, among other things the children were in the countryside, and the boys sang this to the girls: (to a jolly tune)

You're silly to be frightened of a worm
and what about a spider, a lovely hairy spider,
there isn't any need for you to squirm
A spider's just the baby of any mother spider,
and maybe has a sister spider too,
so I think that you're a silly and a ninny and a cissy
to be frightened of a thing that creeps and crawls,
for although it hasn't arms,
there's no need for alarms
when a spider or a worm is just like you.

I wonder if this will help those of you who are frightened of spiders, they are part of families too.

Ana....Didn't know about BORIS in Who song but my ex would have..big fan so that's possible where it came from, thanks for that. Might look it up and have a play and see if I remember the tune.

I feel so sorry for the spiders if I dust their homes away and they are part of the ambience of an older house. Givng the big ones a name makes them even more friendly. Anyway, that's my excuse for not dusting very often.
Shall we start a Friends to Spiders Society? (Different of course in places like Australia. When we lived there my mum cut open a cabbage and was faced with a Black Widow Spider)

Welcome funwithgrandma. The conker thing does seem to be growing in popularity, doesn't it? I wonder if spiders stay away from horse chestnut trees, too?

A taxi-driver told me that spiders will disappear from a room if you put a conker in every corner. I'm planning on doing that as soon as I have enough conkers so that I can do every room - I don't want them to congregate in the un-conkered rooms (awful thought). At present I have 3... I'll have to join in the conker scramble in the park.
While on the spider subject does anyone else walk through their garden with an arm out-stretched waving around in front to avoid walking into a web spanning the gaps between plants?
PS this is my very first message, phew!

Jodi too much information

Shhh ella what happens in the bar stays in the bar! However I'm looking quite 'trim'

Honestly Jodi haven't you got anything else to do before your Naturist meeting?
I would have thought you'd have a lot of tidying up to do

Please do

jodi will do and get back to you!!!!

whitewave if you are going to confide in your spider you may wish to know if it is a he or a she. Here is how to go about it. You will probably need a magnifying glass.
1
Examine the size of the spider. Females are generally larger than male spiders. This step works best if you find more than one spider at a time. Look for the size of the abdomen and the length of the legs.

2
Inspect the area around the spider's mouth. All spiders have pedipalps, which are appendages all spiders have around their mouths, and differ between males and females. Female pedipalps look like another pair of short legs on the spider. Spiders have eight well defined legs otherwise. On the male, the pedipalps are rounded off and look more like boxing gloves.

3
Look for distinguishing body marking on the spiders, which vary from males and females. On a black widow spider, for instance, the female has a distinct red hourglass shape, while the male has lighter streaks on its body.

Read more: How to Tell the Sex of a Spider | eHow.com www.ehow.com/how_8489249_tell-sex-spider.html#ixzz2AJcWDCRh

I have a large one in the greenhouse at the moment and tell her/him about the latest news of OH.

Sorry Borrow, shop had sold out of spider spray! Keep the Hoover handy to suck them up!!

'Boris the Spider' was a Who song from a 1966 album! I still hum it occasionally, while sticking the hoover nozzle in suspect crevices around the house...

In our family we have called all the large hairy ones which come out August, Septemberish to mate the rather silly name of BORIS. Don't ask! Can't remember why! But we always tried to tell the kids to just leave them alone, they would do no harm and would just go away.

Twenty odd years ago when my eldest son was about eight, we moved into a very old house with lots of spiders of all descriptions. One night after the three kids had got to bed, there was this unearthly scream and hysterical crying from upstairs. Taking said stairs two at a time I was met with:- DORIS! DORIS has run over my foot!

Couldn't do a thing for laughing at his gender mix up and Doris got away. The whole household was awake and it remained chaotic for a while! .....So now of course the big ones are all Doris!

Leave spiders alone they clear away unwanted insects and flies, which are more of a nuisance.

soopwish there was a like button.