{"id":5946,"date":"2014-01-17T09:05:29","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T17:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mixhart.ca\/blog\/?p=5946"},"modified":"2014-01-17T09:10:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T17:10:39","slug":"black-widowville-population-increasing-rapidly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mixhart.ca\/index.php\/black-widowville-population-increasing-rapidly\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Widowville: Population Increasing Rapidly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_8128\"<\/a>Last night, near Pip’s 8 p.m. bed time, Pip rushed up to me from down stairs.<\/p>\n

“Mom! A black widow just crawled out of my boot and ran into the hall closet!”<\/em><\/h4>\n

As my readers know, I live in an area of the world where black widow spiders are common: dry, desert like summer with mild winters (mild by Canadian standards). I have encountered many black widows in my garage in the fall and winter months and the odd one in my home. You can read about a few of my encounters in the posts: Black Widows<\/a> and Spiders.<\/a><\/p>\n

I am used to Pip insisting she’s seen a black widow and then happily \u00a0discovering it’s only giant house spider. Though, on several occasions Pip has been right and has found black widows in our house.\u00a0So, to be safe, I rushed down stairs to investigate<\/strong>. I shook out her boots and looked in the hall closet. Gasp!<\/strong><\/em> The closet was stuffed full of boots and shoes of all styles and sizes. It would take me a week to shake out every shoe…<\/p>\n

I looked around as best I could but gave up. I scolded (not harshly) Pip for not calling up to me while staying near the spider (standing safely on the stairs) and watching the spider so I would know exactly where it was hiding. I warned those family members who were home (Tabs\u2014Peter and Mist were out at the time) to be extra careful putting on shoes from the closet for a while.<\/p>\n

I had no idea Pip took my scolding so seriously as within minutes a letter arrived for me via magic winds<\/strong> (she hid behind the foot board of my bed and tossed it over to me), while I was sitting on my bed, working on a frustrating computer issue.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8130\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, bless her darling little soul, she even used a real postal stamp.<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

I opened the mysterious letter that the wind had brought:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8131\"<\/a>\u00a0Apparently, the letter was from a mystery person.<\/strong>\u00a0The present, a ring made by Pip. She created it using a new rubber band loom kit that Granny gave her for Christmas.<\/p>\n

You’ll notice the From: ?<\/strong>\u00a0(at the top left of the letter). Pip drew the question mark in mirror image.<\/p>\n

Of course, I forgave my darling! Though, there was really nothing to forgive her for.<\/p>\n

This morning, as I rushed to get everyone off to school, I reminded the entire family of the spider sighting and to make sure to double check their shoes.<\/strong> However, I decided the spider was probably not a black widow after all as they usually don’t run and hide. They have a tendency to freeze where ever they’ve been discovered and then slowly move away.<\/p>\n

As Tabitha grabbed her back pack and slipped into her shoes, she shouted up stairs, “I found the spider!”\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I rushed down to see what type of spider it was. Yikes!<\/strong> <\/em>Pip was right. It was a black widow. I scooped her up on a coaster and relocated her outside (unfortunately, I hurt one of her legs in the attempt); I hate that.<\/p>\n

There you have it. The latest chapter in the Black Widow Adventures of Knox Mountain<\/em><\/strong>. This spider adventure was most upsetting as our hall closet is like a black hole of shoes. Finding a spider in our hall closet would be like finding a fleck of gold in a sandbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, near Pip’s 8 p.m. bed time, Pip rushed up to me from down stairs. “Mom! A black widow just crawled out of my boot and ran into the hall closet!” As my readers know, I live in an … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[2288,2250,2151,2056,2289,1904,3112,871,2290,2291],"class_list":["post-5946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motherhood","tag-adorable-children","tag-black-widow","tag-black-widow-spider","tag-black-widow-spider-okanagan","tag-black-widow-spiders-and-children","tag-family-life","tag-motherhood","tag-parenthood","tag-scolding-children","tag-sensitive-children"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t