Sneak Preview: Pathfinding in Second Life from Linden Lab on Vimeo.
Labels: Ducks, spiders birds, Sporks, Yaks, zombeh
- 25 July 2011
It seems I'm not the only one being attacked by arachnids as Gabe's sketch shows.
Tiff's grandson Ryan, age five, drew up a schematic to assist him in his investigations, and tho' it wasn't as clear as this, still, it was rather good.
Facts: Saturday last week a spider was observed dashing headlong across my desk as though it had spare necks in its pocketses. It turned up a day later on the wall in the hall. The next day it was a foot from my pillow as I lay in bed.
His conclusion: Baba (Tiff) loosed the spider upon me from a love of mischief. She drove up, hid, and threw the spider at me.
Labels: spiders birds
25 June 2011
Earlier I had noted a big, black spider on the ceiling/wall bend at the head of my bed, but didn't do anything about it as it was not moving and I wasn't up to dealing with it. Just now I was reclining on my bed listening to the radio as I wasn't capable of doing anything else. The light was off. I rolled onto my back and saw the spider picking its way across the ceiling. It went resolutely south, then altered its course and I thought it was aiming for the light fixture. It paused and let itself down a couple of inches, then went back up and repositioned itself and my brain caught fire.
As fast as I was able (not very fast) I arose and turned on the light, gasping as I saw a bare ceiling. That mofo was dangling not three inches from the bedclothes. It disappointedly hauled itself up, as its prey (me) had unaccountably gone missing (or worse it was hurtling down towards me as I fumblingly got up, narrowly missing me).
It's gone now, the bastard.
Labels: spiders birds
28 July 2010
Erk 8(
I was closing the *new* door and did double-take when I saw what was on the wall next to the first landing. A HUGE spider - and not one of the house's usual giant house spiders (official name) but the weird black kind that are asymetrical in their stance in their webs (they look exactly like decayed leaf skeletons rolled up and tattered), and which I'd never seen before about five years ago. I've never seen one this big - it was a bit sick-making, as I knew I had to creep down the stairs and kill it where it rested. It was big. :((((((( I killed it. It left a dribble of spider blood on the wall and I left it on the carpet because sufficient unto the day is my motto.
/me tries to think of something else.
Labels: spiders birds
29 September 2009
Remember the medium-sized spider that lashed its web across the doorway? I concluded it was obvious that the spiders are now trying to catch me. Well...
I decided to stick my head out my front door and gather my bills from the box. I opened the door, cast my eyes at the box, then hesitated a fraction of a second during which time a very large spider dropped directly into the place my head would've been. It dropped and hung at face-level. It surprised me. I knocked it off and got my bills and closed the door.
The inside spiders communicate with the outside spiders. ========:O
They are after me.
I recognised the spider, actually. In the summer a window that is screened on the drive side of the house had this big spider living in it - I kept trying to discourage it and finally one day was able to make it drop down on its silk so I could close the window. I think it bears a grudge.
Labels: spiders birds
18 September 2009
A New Development
I passed through a doorway, then saw a medium-sized brown, leggy spider rapel down the wall in a rush and thunder across the carpet. I lost sight of him then, until I was going to leave the room and saw he'd lashed silk across the doorway. The conclusion is obvious: the spiders are now trying to catch ME.
Labels: spiders birds
30 April 2009
A Great Blue Heron just landed on a rotten piling in front of the house (left over from train tracks many decades ago I have been told). It's dusk so I can't see it very well. There used to be one that liked next-door's dock until the house sold and the new people put in a big slide - maybe this one's related or perhaps this spot attacts h... - oh, there he goes.
There's a juvenile bald eagle hanging out in a Douglas fir to my left.
I saw bags of osprey today - also many eagles.
And a mourning dove likes my deck railing, and that Stellar's Jay is on the job eating spiders every day just about.
Oh, I heard some loons, and I WASN'T in SL.
Labels: spiders birds
09 April 2009
A First
I don't like Stellar's Jays particularly because they are raucous, but there has been one hanging about, hanging about (me: Go AWAY. - it: SWWWWWWK) and just now it leapt onto the railing with a great fat spider in its beak, and swallowed it with relish. If that's what it's about then I'm (belatedly) behind it 100% as this house is very spidery both inside and out. The other day whilst outside cleaning my windows (doors, actually) a ginormous specimen nipped onto the far side of the screen, which made me decide not to leave open that one as it would've then been in the house.
Meanwhile osprey are back, and hummingbirds, which need to eat every .0000613 second, have been finetoothcombing the deck looking for hummingbird feeders or flowers, neither of which they are likely to find.
Labels: spiders birds
22 January 2009
Anji, my niece, has had to deal with huntsman spider(s), and I hadn't thought about it before, but I now wonder what the proven technique is for getting rid of those. One could not suck them up as THEY WOULDN'T FIT INTO THE HOSE. *gasp*
I admit that coming from the kind of background I am the product of, my first thought would be to find a lovely shotgun with damascus barrels or other sublime beauty and have target practice. I fear it would not be considered civilised, though (my pater occasionally shot things like mice in the house, however, just for fun, and he was at least three quarters civilised, perhaps even seven eighths).
Frank suggested a fly swatter, which garned him a jaw-drop from me. I suppose setting fire to the house then running away would be self-defeating. When the loopers (not their real name) moved into their house maybe ten years ago, I gave them a fab and quite large, radio controlled blimp as a house-warming present - they never opened the box, but never mind :( If I had an R/C blimp and a target huntsman spider I could build small bombs or missles, hang them from the blimp, guide it to within the proper range, then let fly. Something tells me that isn't recommended practise, though.
Labels: Exaggeration = an artist's job description, spiders birds
20 January 2009
A month-ish ago I got up then turned and saw a meduim-sized brown spider clinging onto the bedskirt. I did this: :((( then plugged in the stupid in-the-wall suctionisationing device and sucked it up. It looked like a hobo spider: :((((( This morning I got up and there was an inky black spider, same conformation but a bit bigger, and wandering around on top of the bed. :((((((((((((( I sucked it up (but was very glad it hadn't traipsed off out of sight while I was dragging the 9 miles of hose around and plugging it into the tube thingummy.
I don't like to think I have a nest of poisonous spiders in my bed, however it's difficult not to think that. /me hopes they stay down at their end.
Labels: spiders birds
29 September 2008
Giant House Spiders
I'll preface this by saying I an not afraid of most spiders, and this house has thousands.*
This house has Giant house Spiders, which can be big. I looked up and spontaneously gasped a bit ago as an enormous one (conservatively pegged at 3.5 inches with legs, body 1.5 inches) stood coltishly upon the place where the wall turns into the ceiling. I went off to drag over the stupid in-the-wall-vacuum-system hose and actually had to check before entering the spider room in case it had moved to, say, the AREA ABOVE MY HEAD UPON ENTERING =========:o. It hadn't, so I sucked up that one and a lot of small ones.
*SJ on Friday: What do they EAT????
Me: I think the ones which don't build webs probably eat other spiders.
SJ: But what do the ones in webs eat? I don't see any insects.
Me: Or any dead insects in the webs.
Labels: spiders birds
05 September 2008
La Princesse
From the French group which created the Sultan's Elephant and (I think more or less) the Little Giantess.
Labels: spiders birds
02 May 2007
As we all know I don't like Stellar's Jays, but I have one that regularly hops along the balcony railing in front of me. I was watching him just now and suddenly realised what he was doing - eating the spiders. I didn't know they did that. This house is an absolute spider haven, and although I have nothing against normal numbers of normal-sized spiders, the bazillions of spiders everywhere* inside and out have reduced my spider sympathy. I liked watching spiders and ants, etc. as a child** and I still watch them a bit, but I no longer carry them outside. Anyway, the carry-outs probably just got immediately eaten by the outsiders.
Looking up Stellar's Jays I see they eat (or gather perhaps it is) more insects when they are feeding their young. They are quiet near their nests. My main objection to them is that they are so raucous, so there must be a nest or two in the Douglas firs to my left. I ran into a Pine Siskin entry, too, which reminded me of driving down East Bay Drive and seeing a dead flock of those tiny birds in the road. It turned out that, as it was winter and their usual watering spot was frozen, they had drunk from a puddle of antifreeze and all been poisoned.
*including Giant House Spiders, an agressive type that lives under my bed, and those peculiar biting ones that aren't big but leave a long-lasting wound.
** maybe that's out-of-the-ordinary I don't know
Labels: spiders birds