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| Corn Spider- actual size |
Today we somehow ended up talking about our best spider stories, after we ran under a tree with a beast the size of your hand, hanging in a massive web. Until the age of seven, I lived on a farm where the cornfield came right up to our yard. I loved to run through the tall cornstalks (every tall, especially to a 5-year-old) and pretend like I was lost in a maze. One day I was running at full speed, and nearly ran through a big corn spider's web, which is face high to a little kid. I stopped with the massive black and gold spider a couple inches from my nose, the turned and ran home as fast as I could.
My neighbor Daniel was a city kid who never actually ran through corn fields, so he has no cool spider stories. Maybe he saw a spider in an airport sometime or something.
The spider discussion led naturally to snakes, and luckily Daniel had a story of finding a copperhead coiled in their garden hose one time, which his dad dispatched by cutting it to pieces with a shovel. My best snake story (other than seeing a large blue-colored snake sunning itself just under a bridge near our old farm house) came at Davey Ross's 8th birthday party sleepover. That night I remember being completely freaked out by the giant wolf at the end of The Never Ending Story, and I had to watch both Apple Dumpling Gang I and II in order to come down. The next morning, we decided to run around outside because Davey's family 'lived on some land', as they liked to say, with a nearby creek. Not too far from his garage we saw a small water moccasin winding across his driveway. He ran into the garage, put one of his big, padded, winter mittens with just the thumb, and picked up the water moccasin. We gathered around in a circle to look. Unfortunately, he'd picked it up in the middle, rather than right under its head. While Davey was frozen in horror, the snake started whipping its head down, biting and pulling out pieces of the mitten. Davey came to, threw the snake as far as he could, and then we all sprinted back into the house. Luckily, Nintendo had recently been invented, so we were able to finish out the morning in a calmer, safer fashion, by battling trolls and Koopa Troopers and what not.
So what is your best spider or snake story? Comment below!
(If my mom doesn't leave the story of her family's unofficial pet in the comments section, I'm going to be upset!)
1 comment:
JAKE THE SNAKE
Most little girls are afraid of snakes. My 3 sisters and I were no exception. My Dad (your Grandpa) was the son of a biologist and Dad wanted to make sure that we knew that not all snakes were harmful. I was about 6 when Dad introduced us to Jake the Gardener Snake. Jake inhabited our acre yard with many gardens to weed. Jake helped keep the insect population down and was thus a helpful snake. Dad held him up for us to hold and we did and the fear of him was eliminated. (This became very helpful when in 5th grade those silly boys put a rubber snake in my desk, stood back and waited to see me scream. I saw it; calmly picked it up and asked who lost a snake.)
Occasionally we would come across Jake while weeding the myrtle and see his quick little tongue flicking in greeting. We were very fond of the little fella.
Dad often would hire guys to help him with heavier guy work. One day he gathered us to tell us the sad news that one such young man, finding a snake in the garage,dispatched him with a shovel, thinking he was saving our family from a dangerous creature. So we couldn't be mad, but we were sad. That young man later became a leader in the community. I believe hanging out with Dad was part of the foundations of that man's adult success. Sorry Jake.
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