Near Death Decorating Experience

I love doing different decorating projects around my house. I usually work on different projects here and there but today was the scariest one yet. I almost died. Okay, I didn’t really, but I COULD have!

Earlier this year a storm broke off part of a tree in our yard. So Jason used the chainsaw to make it into firewood and put them out back to dry out. I have been wanting to bring them into the house for awhile now to stack them inside the fireplace. No, I don’t want to burn them, I just want them for decoration! Today I decided was as good of day as any to bring the logs inside and stack them up.

Since I didn’t think it was going to be a very long process, I just went outside in what I was wearing (shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops), grabbed the wheelbarrow and started filling it up. I sort of pounded each one on the ground hoping to get any loose dirt and such off so I wouldn’t track it all into the house but other than that, I just loaded them up.

I took the first few and stacked them inside the fireplace and went back into the garage for the next stack. I picked up the log and guess what I found? A spider. Now, I am not usually afraid of bugs, spiders included. I do usually ask Jason to kill them for me because I don’t like the squishy feeling but I’m not scared of them. So I took the log back outside and went to brush it off (I did have gloves on) and realized it was a Black Widow! When I saw the bit of red on her I knew what it was. Not only was there a spider but she was also protecting 2 egg sacks next to her. So I did what any normal girl would do, I took a brick and squished her to bits! Then I ran back inside and told Jason what happened, got on the internet to make sure I really had seen a black widow and then ran upstairs to put more clothes on!

It sort of gave me the heebie-jeebies. I had been carrying these logs next to my body, with short sleeves on! And not only that, I had been carting them into my house! You can be sure that from then on I inspected each and every log, dusted them off, and sprayed them with spider killer before bringing them inside. Maybe a little overboard but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Afterward, I took my camera outside to get a picture of the mangled spider (all that was left was her legs!) but the ants had carried everything away already! So I have no pictures to prove what happened, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I’m very thankful that in my first experience with a black widow, I won. As for the decorating project? It was worth it :) Although I realized that I need more logs, I want to fill it all the way up. So, here we go again…

fireplace