I didn't have time to stop so I swerved to the right, ducked, leaned over and
hit the throttle.......
Almost every night I make a run up to the manure pile in the woods with the shit cart and four-wheeler.
There are 4 different routes I have cleared so I change it up a bit. It's only about 2 acres so it's not
a huge endeavor.
This summer the weather has been damn good. Beautiful nights with light until well after 8pm.
Someone must have been looking out for me two nights ago. It was heavily overcast with
dark gray laden clouds and nightfall came early. I grabbed a beer, fired up the four-wheeler
and headed up back. It was the first time since early spring that I turned on the headlights.
The OEM lights are yellowish and low so the previous owner mounted some nice LED bar lights
to bring out the day. I made my way out back, dumped the cart, opened the beer, sat for a minute
enjoyed the solitude and then headed back in.
As I made my way out on a different trail, I crested the rise. Mind you, I'm in low gear, going
5-7 mph just putting along so I don't spill my beer. I even wear safety glasses so I don't get
the potential stray branch in the eyes.
The lights illuminated something that shouldn't have been there. There has never been anything
like it on the trails for all the years I have gone up there. If I hit the brake pedal I was too close.
I goosed it, swerved right, ducked and leaned right. I passed through, felt the whisper on my
arm and prayed that was it. Also, I didn't spill my beer.
Last night, I cautiously approached and there was nothing.
Tonight...
I changed up my route tonight. I went out the regular way and took the return loop that goes out
along the property line.
Again, it's not that big and only takes a few minutes, if that, to drive it. I crested the rise and the
trail from the previous night enters on my right. All the lights were on and I eased up to the intersection.
NO FUCKING WAY... I let out a low whistle. My beer became cold and froze in my hand.
The fucker rebuilt it in one day.
So, two nights ago I was approaching from the far side of the picture. Also note, that's not
a small ATV. The web encompasses the width of the trail.
Back to two nights ago.
As I came up the trail (from the distance in the picture towards you , the viewer) I swerved
( left as your looking at the image) and busted up the web ties, hope and praying that
I didn't have a passenger.
If I didn't have the headlights on to catch the glistening web
I would have gotten that fucking tarantula right in the face. Who knows where I would have ended up?
This isn't that clear of a picture but that little bigger is good sized.
It must have been aggravated by the light and decided to head up to the tree.
This was a first for me. Like I said, I have been up there for the past 5-6 years almost daily.
Plus hours spent cutting dead fall and dropping some dead pines. I have never encountered
a spider web or spider like that..... I may have some options though.
You have options, Irish. 🔥🚀 Incredible how quickly it can rebuild its web.
ReplyDeleteYou know that they manufacture a product that simply attaches to the handlebars on ATVs that stick up high and infront of you that eliminates this problem. Not very expensive either. Or you could just duct tape 2 branches to your front rack. Zip ties work too. This is why a country boy can survive and the rest of you are screwed.
ReplyDeleteI never needed a windshield. BUT, you give me ideas. That being said. The bastard probably bleeds acid and it would melt through the polycarbonate wind screen.
DeleteMany years ago I was a surveyor in Jacksonville, FL. Plenty of time in the woods. You learn real quick to wave a 4-foot lath in front of you when traipsing through.
ReplyDeleteRide with a shotgun,I would.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shit story...hybo
ReplyDeleteYou should see the pile of manure.
DeleteIrish
I walked into a big garden spider nest & the little fucker headed down my shirt collar.|
ReplyDeleteGlad I didn't have to shed anymore clothes, the neighbors woulda got a show.
That appears to be a she, not a he.
But nowadays, who the fuck knows, right?
CC
I still have PTSD from one of the little monsters that decided to rappel down from the front rim of my helmet right in front of my eyeballs on the night land nav course at Ft. Knox. It took my partner ten minutes to stop laughing, after I pretty much re-enacted Chef's tiger encounter from Apocalypse Now.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifoN_vDtgiQ
Never get out of the boat.
Absolutely g**d***ed right.
Now THAT's funny!
DeleteOG
It looks like a familiar spider that builds its nets of terror locally. The web will stretch, and stretch, until it covers you from head to toe with a sticky reminder of the poison fangs of the creature that made it.
ReplyDeleteWhere did it go? Is it in my back? Or is it scrambling up my shirt to bite me on the neck? Instead of calmly stopping to survey, the reaction is to madly scrape at the sticky string, and dance around in the hope the spider falls to the ground.
The bite, although not terribly poisonous, will fester into a large abscess, since the fangs are full of the nasty bacteria left from meals of the former victims. Been there, it's not pretty when it drains.
My rule is they can inhabit anywhere they want, as long as it isn't within the range of my pump-up sprayer.
Had a South American bird spider drop on the back of my neck in my collar in the middle of the night. Yeah. No thanks....
ReplyDeleteYou would have to be too close with your flammenwerfer. I'm thinking a direct energy weapon may be the best option.
ReplyDeleteimagine how many mosquitos and deerflies that thing eats daily. let it keep eating.
ReplyDeleteat work in Nashua we're overwhelmed with deerflies. today I killed 3 of them in 15 minutes. but it's better than closing the loading dock doors and sweating to death.
Oh ya, the deer flies are extremely busy right now. I hate those little bastards.
DeleteDang! I expected to read that you had an intimate encounter with a skunk.
ReplyDelete4 legs good, 8 legs not-so-good.
Years ago, lived in Southeast Asia: would do some off-trail running, and there were huge spiders with gigantic webs (although the monstrous things had the decency to not want to get near humans, for the most part) - running through was never pleasant, and sure enough, the bastards would have it rebuilt in a day. Anon's suggestion about the branches sounds good: we used to run with a branch in front of us to keep the webs (and spiders) away...that usually worked.
ReplyDeleteBut, that worked for SE Asian spiders. For American spiders...yeah, you might be right about the acid blood thing, Irish!
--ExpatGuy
Probably made by a Joro spider. Our friends in China brought them to Georgia a few years ago. Headed your way along with killer bees. https://news.uga.edu/joro-spiders-likely-to-spread-beyond-georgia/
ReplyDeleteWhen I got bored living in a trailer waaaaaaay up north, I would shine my flashlight on this huge web outside the window so the bugs would fly into it and then I'd watch the spider do its thing.
ReplyDeleteWilling to bet that it's a golden orb weaver. They build a web at night and take it down during the day compared to most spiders that build 'em and leave 'em up all the time. They get pretty big. We have several here. They look exactly like your spider.
ReplyDeleteThanks Karl. I will get a better picture today. It will be interesting if the web is there during the day. I know there
Deleteare deer, coyote and other assorted wild life that pass through and inhabit the woods behind the property.
My bad, lol. I was typing faster than I was comprehending. NOT GOLDEN ... GARDEN. A Garden Orb Weaver. I never checked my comment until now. But anyway, it looks exactly like your spider and takes its web down during the day.
DeleteWe have the big orb weaver spiders down south and in Missouri. They'll spin a web completely across a trail like that, sometimes eight feet wide. When you're a kid running down a trail through the pine forests and run smack into one of those things, it'll freak you out, especially if it's covered with thick yellow pollen.
ReplyDeleteThat's a garden spider. Big 'un. Harmless, except to your psyche.
ReplyDelete8-9 years old running through a corn field, stopped 2 inches from a web in front of my face with an 8 inch corn spider. AAAAAHHHHHHH !!!!
ReplyDeleteI am on week 3 of rwcovering from a brown recluse bite on my ear... almost back to normal.
ReplyDeleteAs others have said, that's an Orb Weaver.
ReplyDeleteMost types are fairly small, but there is a "giant" variety.
Every couple of years I end up with one in my back yard (NE corner of TX).
They're usually grey, but every once in a while they're green.
-rightwingterrorist
Makes me think of my good friend who was LEO working undercover with biker gangs up north. One of the bravest people I know, cojones the size of bowling balls. Spiders made him squeal like a little girl.
ReplyDeleteI think it was laying for you. Right across the path, there again a day or so later. It wants a big meal.... Back the WW Twice, the jerry would string piano wire across the roads. Our few of our guys in jeeps merrily beheaded themselves, then they put up the The Stick. You can see it in period photos. Wire catcher, or at least get it over your head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_catcher Better hope it doesn't order barbed wire....
ReplyDeletemy "bear spray" is Raid Wasp & Hornet Killer; i don't like the patterning with #9s from my 45
ReplyDeleteYeah I hate walking through webs. They are efficient and fast little creatures and observing them doing their thing is amazing. I leave most up if I can to help with the undesirables. Great story Irish, nice evasion skills, spilling beer is a party foul subject to the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteYears ago one of my older brothers was riding "Rocky", a pony my dad had acquired for a time, along the trail behind the barn. Suddenly, out of nowhere came a blood-curdling scream! After the briefest of moments Mikey and Rocky came screaming through the barn (literally and figuratively) with Mikey still flailing his arms to get rid of what he called "the largest spider I've ever seen in my life!", that was previously attached to his face. Good times.
ReplyDeleteBuddy of mine was stationed down in Grenada back in the 80's. Barracks were right up against the jungle. He told me that he went for a "short stroll" to see what he could see. About two or three feet in, he saw a ginormous web with a spider as big as a softball with big hairy legs. Thus ended his "short stroll" thru the jungle.
ReplyDeleteOG
It was Panama not Grenada.
ReplyDeleteOG
Forget the flamethrower ... better living through chemistry. A malathion drench will solve your problem. If the EPA hadn't banned them, I'd recommend an organophosphate insecticide like chlorpyrifos-based Dursban or Lorsban. The stuff worked.
ReplyDeleteBack in the halcyon days of the USMC, M151 jeeps had wire cutters mounted to the front to keep the decapitations from commo wire to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteCan't really tell by the pictures, but it appears to have a bulbous abdomen which is similar to a spider we have around here. As I've had a few surprise contacts with them, they don't seem to be easily provoke to bite. They build their webs in the evenings and consume them (generally) at first light. They seem to relocate if their hard work (webs) are damaged frequently. If you've ever watched a spider build a web, you can't help by impressed by them and the good Lord.
ReplyDeleteSome years back I was working as a mechanic at one of the larger wastewater treatment plants, out here in the Desert Southwest. From early Spring, right on into late Fall, the areas around the 'Finish' water channels were the proverbial Kingdom of The Spiders...and you definitely had to pay attention getting to, and into, your maintenance vehicle on the charging line, lest you find yourself turning into an instant karate practitioner! Plenty of big Orb Weavers...
ReplyDeleteOrb web spiders like to make their webs in places that bugs are attracted to. Like shining a light on a place that is subtly lighter than the surrounding background. Think bugs attracted to an outside white light that is reflecting off of a light or white colored background farther away from the light. You'll find webs both very near the light and the surface farther away that is reflecting that light.
ReplyDeleteThe moon is on its way to full. So, if this spider is newly arrived to the site, which, per your assessment that you've never seen a web there before, it is building its web where bugs will be attracted, perhaps by a shaft of moonlight coming through the trees reflecting off of a light colored patch of dirt or manure that is shaking loose from your haul cart after it goes over a bump..
My neighbors, directly across the lawn between my and their townhouse have a habit of leaving their outside light on. I frequently go out in the night to find a web across the railing on the stoop to my front entrance. The light that they leave on reflects off of my white front door attracting bugs, making an ideal place for an orb weaver to trap night flying bugs.
Nemo
I live in the Outback of Australia where locally there are bird eating spiders (8"+ span) and very very very aggressive "funnel webs", the world's deadliest spiders and a bite from a particular spider that dissolves your flesh long after the bite has occurred.
ReplyDeleteHere are a few simple rules about spiders, from people here who know "the bush".
"On the ground, in the ground, deadly. Above the ground, no worries".
Also,"After soaking rains, check your bed before retiring and your boots before putting them on."
"When passing through large webs (usually with LARGE spiders embedded in them) simply reach up with one hand and quickly pull the web off your face and discard." This works, being doing it for 50 plus years without grief.
It's the Eastern Brown and the Fierce Snake aka Inland Taipan (look them up) snakes that you have to really really very very careful with.
Cheers from the Never Never.
Many orb weavers will eat their web around dawn, then rebuild it around dusk, so your spider rebuilding its web in one day is not surprising at all.
ReplyDelete