Alfred Hitchcock Horror Films!
We folks who live in the North Woods sometimes host a very interesting visitor in our homes. One that usually makes us feel a bit squeamish when we first see It.
I suppose some people might exhibit actual panic when descending the stairway and finding themselves face-to-face with the above creature. However, if you’ve lived here long enough, you might simply shudder inadvertently and then cheerily greet the visitor.
“Hello, Pine Spider!”
Spider silently says hello
Most people around here call the creatures “pine spiders”. However, after diligently googling spider identification, I am not sure if we are correct. Perhaps it’s a wolf spider.
It is maybe two inches round. (I just scurried downstairs with the plastic green ruler to measure the circumference. The spider dashed into a hole in the sliding glass frame and disappeared. My unofficial measurement says 2.25 inches round.)
It really isn’t the spider itself which is scary. It isn’t poisonous. It is simply the shock of seeing the large creature materializing inside your house. And then you have to decide how you’re going to lure it into a glass (utilizing a piece of paper) to let it free outside.
No, dear reader, I would not kill it!
However, since the inadvertent ruler incident, we shall have to wait until the spider reappears to conduct a Spider Rescue Mission.
Actually, I have only spotted maybe a half-dozen pine/wolf spider house guests during our habitation in the woods. The worst spotting occurred back in 1985.
I had been swooning, ill, on the couch for weeks, pregnant. My hand flopped off the couch onto the floor. One day something rolled under the couch and we were forced to move it. Imagine my horror to discover that a pine/wolf spider was living directly under my pregnant body, about two inches from the swooning hand!! That did not help the queasiness.
Tree falls on road near our house--branches everywhere!
On another note altogether, that was some wind last night! You could hear several trees crashing outside. When I returned from work a while ago, you could see the demise of one tree near our driveway. It’s all over the road, hundreds of branches. When Barry gets home from work, perhaps he’ll take his chainsaw and cut it up. I’ll help him remove the branches from the road. Luckily, it looks like cars can still maneuver around the fallen tree.
Finally, I just liked the look of this tender young raspberry plant snaking up our mailbox post. The way the green looks so vibrant.
Young raspberry plant snakes up mailbox post.
Perhaps I should rescue the pine/wolf spider and place it near the raspberry plant?
Lake Superior Spirit 
Me and a spider of that size would not be living in the same room for very long, trust me … I hate spiders!!
Yikes, glad that was not me making the spider discovery.
Kathy, I would not put the spider near the mailbox post. You don’t want it taking up residence in your mailbox!
Hi Kathy, we use the same spider rescue technique in our house and have had some interesting experiences in the process…especially when the spider is almost as large as the top of glass!! Or the paper slips!! Or he can run like the wind and jump like the dickens!!
He’s a very beautiful fellow, your pine spider. I’m sure he’ll be very happy, roaming free, out in your woods!
Hooray, another spider rescuer!!!!!!!
From one spider rescuer to another:
Spiders are so useful…real pest controllers and many many
are killed…not sure why, when the paper over glass usually
works….usually!
Fountainpen!
Spiders are good. Wind is good. Raspberries…are great! 🙂
Really, each does its job well without us humans getting in the way. Spiders each insects and keep their numbers in check. Winds bring change. Sometimes constructive (though most think of it as destructive) change and raspberries change my sweet tooth cravings. 😉
Loved all the nature and adventure, KD. Great pictures! I don’t kill spiders either. Lot of folks think I’m weird. I believe it is the Chinese who believe that spiders indoors are “good omens.”
I had an infestation of wolf spiders once – I think because the ground was disturbed near our house for a new building. It was not pleasant! I was unable to use the humane method of moving them outdoors – they actually were in such numbers that they were moving me!
Kathy –
I am not a fan of spiders. Not in the least. I would not have killed it. But it would now be the single occupant of my home. I would have ran on water, across the lake top — and you would still hear the echo of my screams. There’s just no flippin’ way!
Laurie Buchanan
http://holessence.wordpress.com/
I love spiders! – They are SO useful in our environment. But my family don’t like them and are afraid of them (?!) – so they get me to take them out of the house – by the glass+paper way of course. They are only around half of the size of yours……
I enjoyed the spider, the fallen tree, your photographs and the rest of your post! Thanks for sharing this.
Jan
LOVE the colors and shapes in the header! (Not that I don’t also love the spider picture and story, just that the header is so very beautiful!)
Dear friends (spider enthusiasts and spider haters alike): You will be Happy to know that the above spider has been carefully lured beneath a wide-mouthed glass–pushed in utilizing a heavy piece of cardboard) and is now luxuriating beneath the oak tree outside. If he/she hasn’t discovered a way back into the basement, that is!
Spider rescue successfully accomplished Yeah!
My daughter always made me take the spiders out of the bathtub when she was young… I learned to be brave. She never knew that I was as scared of them as she was.
My daughter was so scared of spiders, too. Good thing we learned to be brave! (Are you still as scared of them as you used to be?)
I am usually a spider-rescuer also – except for one time! I was staying in a cabin on Michigamme Lake (one of my after-school runaways) and while sitting on the toilet, in scurried the hugest pine spider I ever saw. Being stuck there – literally with my pants down – all I could think of to do was to kill and flush it. It was interesting in a way as when I squashed it, the body seemed to be mosting air and disintegrated quite like the Wicked Witch when hit with water. I did say a little prayer to the spider gods for forgiveness!
Yep, Cindy, guess there is a Time to Kill Spiders, and a Time to Rescue Spiders. A time for each season under earth… (Quite the spider/toilet story! tee hee…)
Yikes!!! Spiders are fine outside but NOT in my house. I’m all for “trying” to get them outside (where they belong) but am certainly not against smooshing one on occasion if transplanting isn’t an option. I see a bug and count legs. If it has six legs it’s just an insect but if it has eight legs it’s an arachnid if it’s in my house it’s on its way out, dead or alive. If it’s in my shower it’s probably gonna get glopped with shampoo, then flushed in its own little toilet paper cocoon. Give me snakes any ol’ day!!!
Deborah, I am smiling! Give you SNAKES any ol’ day??? Lady, what are you talkin’ about? I would be running from snakes so fast you wouldn’t even SEE me! Funny, what scares us…