Arachnophilia…not

My roommate (who’s studying to be a veterinarian) showed me a book last night. It’s a book about the weirdest creatures on the planet, and he’s rather fond of the spider section. (He knows that I can’t stand arachnoids. At all. Nothing else really gives me the creeps, but I see a spider and I feel like it’s crawling down my neck. Enter the heebie-jeebies.)

Now, some of those spiders are just hideous. Like, ugly. Worse than ugly. Makes you wonder if God delegated some of the creating to the lower angels — maybe those spiders were class projects from Arachnoids 101. All I know is that when I start creating worlds, there aren’t going to be any spiders. I’ll find some other creature — some pleasant-looking beast — to fill that niche in the ecosystem. No spiders allowed.

(I’ve blogged about spiders before, I just remembered.)

I should also mention that this same roommate brought in a dead snake a couple weeks ago (pictures are on Flickr), and the other day it was a dead grasshopper (also on Flickr). Said grasshopper is now perched on my printer, which I just noticed a few seconds ago. Goodness. Before long we’ll have a veritable museum. (He doesn’t kill these things, by the way — he just finds them.)

The astute Flickr followers (and many of these photos make their way to my Facebook profile as well) will have noticed that I’ve taken lots of pictures of dead critters. Beetles, ants, birds, now snakes and grasshoppers. I’m not as morbid as it may seem, I promise. It’s just that it’s way easier to photograph dead things because they don’t move. Do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph a bee in flight with a dinky consumer camera (and a slow shutter speed)? Personally, I prefer the live fauna, myself, but they’re harder to get. Until I get a better camera.

Anyway, I’m off to another ward conference (the third of eleven). I’m just praying that I don’t come back to find a dead tarantula in my shoe. Squish. Eww.

One of the things I like best about moving to New Zealand is that there are NO poisonous spiders. None. I don’t hate spiders as much as you do. I’ve been living in basements for the last 2 1/2 years, so I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to smashing them when I see them.

However, I am utterly terrified of snakes. I have nightmares, and I’ve had some scary experiences. And do you know what? NO snakes in New Zealand. NONE! None! Hooray!

The spider is my creepy nemesis, too. I shudder every time I think of one.
It’s funny about your dead animal photos. When my husband was on his mission in Russia he began a collection of dead animal pictures. He would see some poor thing in the snow and out came the camera! It became a game for him. He’s not morbid, really. Really.

The whole easier-to-photograph thing is probably why Starevich used dead bugs for his pioneering stop-motion animation in the 1910s. :)

(For example, this or this. Great stuff.)

I don’t like spiders and snakes…

I grew up in Hawaii where there are no snakes of any kind. That made back packing and camping a wonderful pass time of the summers of my youth.

However, the summer of my junior year I was camping and nearly had a heart attack. We had finished lunch and cleaned up, we had some free time. We had been building this huge nature trail through the brush. I was exhausted. I went to my pup tent and stretched out on my cot for a few winks. Suddenly I woke with a start. I felt like someone was watching me. It was quite creepy. I opened my eyes and just above my face about 12 inches was a huge can spider. At first, I opened my mouth to scream and nothing happened. Then I screamed and I am sure the hills reverberated. Friends came running, grabbed my shoulders and yanked me out of my tent.

After a moment I was able to convey my terror. A friend she would take care of it. Soon I was told I could safely return. I thanked her and went to my cot, shut my eyes and tried to rest again. Again I felt someone staring at me. I opened my eyes. The spider was back, but I thought my friend had killed it. Again I screamed. Again I was pulled from my tent. When I told my friend, “I thought you killed it.” She replied, “No, I am Buddhist and the spider did not hurt you.” Again she chased the spider from my tent. This time she drove it far away. It took hours to calm my nerves.

I guess I should be grateful for cane spiders as they check the cock roach population in Hawaii, eating about 10 a day. Time to be thankful in all things…

I like Charlotte Mason’s idea of Nature notebooks. I have a Canon Ftb I bought in college so I could do nature photography. It lets me take high speed photos, as well as timed exposures. I do not have patience for pocket cameras.

Sherry: Sounds like Ireland. :P I lived in a basement for my last few years at home, so I was accustomed to seeing (and smashing) them, too, but even that didn’t overcome the heebie-jeebies I get whenever I see them. I have nightmares on a somewhat regular basis (well, once every three or four months :)) where my floor is littered with spiders, evil red ones with translucent sacs. ~shiver~

Emily: :) There really is beauty in death, honestly. (And no, I don’t hunt, and I dislike killing things. Even spiders, though I still kill them because I prefer them dead. But I don’t like actually doing the killing.)

Rikker: Wow. Wow. :)

Donna: Snakes don’t bother me, actually. Most bugs and vermin don’t — just spiders. And while I know that they eat other bugs, I’d frankly rather have the other bugs, thank you very much. As for the photography, I’m thinking about upgrading to a DSLR pretty soon. If only they weren’t so darn expensive…