For Corrosive, because I know he likes them so much! :) Spider Pictures...BEWARE!!!

[GabeU]

I had been waiting a while for one of these guys to show up, and knowing how much Corrosive just loves them, I couldn't resist.  These are a bit fatter and more sinister looking than the other type of wolf spiders I get.  I won't touch these (except with my shoe).  Enjoy!  

[maratsade]

They make the webs every day? WOW.  I just see them hanging from their webs from the house or the shed.  They seem to be there all season, and then their egg sacs appear, hanging too. The spiders, I think, die off at the end of the season, but the egg sacs  remain and the next season new spiders emerge. 

I hear brown recluse bites are terrible.  I think they can be lethal, right?  I've seen gorgeous black widows by the edge of the woods.  They're fairly small spiders, but they do carry a punch!

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@GabeU wrote:

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@maratsade wrote:

Could be worse; could be a brown recluse or a black widow!  I get argiope spiders in the garden.  They hang there in an x-shape.  I've also seen black widows outside.  I see spiders inside but have no idea what species they are.

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We get those argiope spiders here, too.  I always find them on accident when walking through a field, and when you almost walk into one they take your breath away, that's for sure.  

You know that they actually make those awesome webs every single day?  A new one every morning.  Amazing, and they are amazing looking (both the spider and the webs).  

We don't get brown recluse or black widow spiders here, or at least not that I've seen or heard of.  Too far north.  Used to see a black widow every now and then when I lived in VA, though.  Was a heating and AC tech so I crawled through plenty of crawl spaces and old basements.  Never saw a brown recluse, though I know that they were there.  Had a counter guy working for me, when I went to the wholesale side of the business, and he had been bitten by one about a year before hand, but it kept acting up every now and again.  Those brown recluse bites are AWFUL!!!!

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[GabeU]

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@maratsade wrote:

They make the webs every day? WOW.  I just see them hanging from their webs from the house or the shed.  They seem to be there all season, and then their egg sacs appear, hanging too. The spiders, I think, die off at the end of the season, but the egg sacs  remain and the next season new spiders emerge. 

I hear brown recluse bites are terrible.  I think they can be lethal, right?  I've seen gorgeous black widows by the edge of the woods.  They're fairly small spiders, but they do carry a punch!

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I've never seen their eggs sacs, but the spiders alone are enough to make my heart jump a little.  Quite big.  And those webs...I was amazed when I read that.  It's actually the inner, circular part that they make new every morning, not the entire thing, but that's still an amazing feat and contains that zig zag part, too.  

Brown recluse can be deadly, but not normally.  Mostly it would be with young kids and older, more frail people.  But, the bites can be awful.  From what I read, the majority don't tend to be too bad, but some are, and they can be REALLY bad.  They can make the area around the bite become necrotic, and that's what happened to the counter guy that worked for me.  It would get somewhat better, then would act up again and he would have to go back to the doctors.  He had been dealing with this for months, and probably had months to go.  It was like a sizable wound that just wouldn't heal.  When I say sizable I mean about the diameter of a lemon.  

I think it's the same with black widows.  For most people the bite woudln't be deadly, though it would make them sick.  Again, though, with little kids and older people, on the other hand, the bites can be fatal.  I'm so grateful that we don't have anything around here like that.  LOL.  

About the only thing we have around here, insect wise, that freaks me out a bit are those European hornets.  Those things are HUGE, though not quite as large as those Asian giant hornets.  I've never been stung by one, but from what I've read the pain is pretty intense and can last for a few days.  I simply can't imagine.  

[maratsade]

@GabeU, There's a picture of the egg sacs here:  https://curiousfarmer.com/2011/09/06/black-and-yellow-garden-spider/

I wanted to link directly to the picture, but the board would actually render the picture, and I didn't want @C0RR0SIVE to tell use to "got to bleep, you bunch of bleeping bleepers."  🙂

I mostly see the sacs hanging from buildings, but sometimes they hang from plants too if that's where the spider is. And yes, those spiders are pretty impressive. Very  big. I wouldn't want to walk into one of those webs.  That zig-zag thing is amazing. They're amazing creatures, unless you're an insect. 

I didn't know the brown recluse's bite was so awful.  That's really gross, especially since it won't heal!

I have hornets too. Those things are freaky and they're HUGE and so angry all the time. One of my dogs likes to go poking around where they are and he always get stung multiple times and ends up having to take a whole bunch of Benadryl.  As soon as the bumps are healed, he goes poking around the hornets' area again.  He's an idiot.  I've seen pictures of the Asian hornets.  OMG. 

[GabeU]

@maratsade

I think I've seen those kinds of sacs before, but I just never knew what they were, other than some kind of spider egg sac.  

When I was eight years old I was playing down the "bank" behind our house (it was a ravine), and there was this rusted out, old 1920s or 1930s truck.  There were vines that were hanging down and attached to it, and I was trying to yank one of the vines off so I could swing from it like tarzan.  Little did I know, there was a bald faced hornets nest inside the truck, and the movement knocked it down.  Needless to say, by the time I got away I had been stung 49 times.  They got up my shirt sleeves and kept stinging me in the arms, and on the neck, and on my face.   I've never seen my brother run up the side of the ravine so fast as he didn't know what the heck was going on.  He just saw me flailing my arms while screaming.  

A few days later I went to the Adirondacks with my father and his new wife for their "kids included honeymoon".  I had a couple of different kind of meds that I had to take with me.  Some pills and a cream.  It wasn't fun.  LOL.  

[maratsade]

@GabeU, that sounds HORRIBLE.  I've only ever been stung by bees, and that's pretty bad. Can't even imagine being stung by hornets so many times. I bet your brother broke some speed records that day... 

[GabeU]

@maratsade

Actually, to be honest, though collectively it was excruciating for a few hours, each individual sting wasn't all that bad compared to many other wasps and such.  I've been stung by standard yellow jackets and they hurt SO MUCH more.  Bald faced hornets are actually a type of yellow jacket, but they don't hurt as much as the regular ones, for some reason.  At least, not that I remember.  In reality, those European hornets are the only real hornets we have in North America.  

My mother took me to the ER, though, as she was concerned about being stung by so many at one time.  I'm not allergic to bees or wasps normally, but when you get stung that many times it's best to not take a chance.  It's something I'll never forget, that's for sure.  My brother won't, either.  We actually laugh about it sometimes.  

[maratsade]

Still, a pretty nasty experience. Were you given any injections?  And did your mother scold you? I know my mother would've thrown a fit. My younger brother once jumped from a tree onto some debris and he sliced his wrist open, which meant he opened up an artery.  He had to be rushed to casualty and be stiched up, and I think they had to give him a tetanus boost because he'd cut himself with something rusty. ETA: all the while, my mother kept scolding him.

[GabeU]

@maratsade

To be honest, I can't remember if I received any injections, though it wouldn't surprise me to find out that I did.  

My mother really didn't get too mad or scold me or anything, as it was really nothing more than a fluke.  I had done so many things when I was a kid that could have ended up a lot worse than it did, and those things were stupid.  This was just one of those things.  

I've had a few tetanus shots in my time.  My brother was the bone breaker, and I was the one who always got cut.  I don't ever remember him getting stitches for anything, while I've had them numerous times, including both hands, three separate times on my fingers, twice on my head and once on my face (that one left a noticeable scar that everyone sees and would easily be able to pick out (I'll never get away with a crime... 😛 )), and he's broken both arms (his left twice), both ankles and one of the vertebrae in his back, and the only thing I've ever broken, knock on wood, is my left little toe when I stubbed it on a corner "brick" of a fake, electric fireplace we had when I was a kid.  🙂  

[maratsade]

Wow, you both sure got hurt a lot, but I bet you had fun (before the pain set in)!

[GabeU]

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@maratsade wrote:

Wow, you both sure got hurt a lot, but I bet you had fun (before the pain set in)!

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Well, they're definitely things I won't forget, that's for sure.  

I tend to be more careful these days.  LOL  😛

[maratsade]

We grow old and cautious! LOL  I broke both my ankles jumping over things - good times. 🙂

[MarkJFine]

My avi is last Sept during the Navy/AF Half in DC.

About a month after that I got an achilles problem in my right foot (the exact day before Santi Cazorla did his). I was able to run on a treadmill, but not a lot, and was in pain for most of about 5-6 months until it finally healed.

Then I overdid it and got a real bad case of fasciitis in my left foot, which had me out of action since early May.

Older... cautious... not really. 🤕 lol

Close to 60 and this is really my first bout with tendon-type injuries, so... there's that.

[maratsade]

@MarkJFine, looks like some people get more cautious with age, while others get totally reckless.... LOL. It all goes in the memoirs anyway! 🙂

Did you get plantar fasciits? And how did you mess up your Achilles tendon? (that's so painful)

ETA: "the exact day before Santi Cazorla did his."  Cazorla=copycat

[MarkJFine]

@maratsade

I have a regular stretching routine, which is really meant for hamstrings and calves. One day I lifted my leg onto the porch railing to do a hammy stretch and banged my heel real hard. Didn't realise what I did until a steep downhill at the beginning of mile 6. Aggravated the achilles, right there.

I think the mechanics of dealing with the achilles on one side made me run a certain way, causing a pronation I never had on the other side. I guess it's plantar because the heel gets inflamed, but it seems to move around a bit.

The depressing thing is that these are considered "old man" injuries.

[maratsade]

Well, that sounds quite painful. Owie.  As for old man's injuries, I get the "well, you know, it's part of aging" thing from doctors (sometimes complete with a nod and a compassionate look) -- have been getting this since I turned 30.  What?  Young athletes get hurt All.The.Time.  People of all ages get hurt. And old age begins at 30? In the 21st century?  [end of rant]

[MarkJFine]

@maratsade

it's true. These "kids" on the pitch are considered veterans being on the "wrong side of 30".

Training for half marathons (13.1 mi), I was eventually running one on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, just to build endurance, then speed. Eventually it catches up, too.

[maratsade]

I maintain 30 is the new 12  So there.

[maratsade]

@GabeU, that's a very cool spider.  Do you know what kind it is?  (I can only recognize two kinds)