Kitten in the Bronx still looking for a home!
Saturday morning I got up a little after 6, showered and dressed, and then started my usual morning routine, which consists of scooping litter boxes and giving kittens snacks. After I’d given the Spice Girls their morning snack, I start scooping their litter boxes, and found a spider running around in one of them. I scooped it into the bag I was scooping everything else into, and continued on to the other litter boxes.
When I was done scooping, I handed the bag to Fred and told him there was a spider in there. And that I was 99% sure it was a Brown Recluse. He took the bag outside, and looked, and then he scooped (with a litter scoop, not his bare hand, we’re not ANIMALS) it out onto the driveway, and we snapped a few pictures of it. Then I stomped it dead.
Since I thought it was possible I’d been bitten by a Brown Recluse in the garden a few weeks ago, I’d recently seen pictures of them. Which is the only reason I even considered it might be a Brown Recluse – not because of the “fiddle” on its back (don’t tell Fred, but I still don’t see a fiddle shape), but because it’s a particularly leggy spider.
Fred came inside and looked around online, and decided that it was, in fact, a Brown Recluse.
Now, okay. Brown Recluse spiders are scary and all. But the man has lived in Alabama his entire life – for several years in his father’s house, where a LOT of Brown Recluses were known to show up IN HIS BEDROOM – and never once has he been bitten. But finding out that there’d been a Brown Recluse in this house made him FLIP the fuck out, as if he suddenly had concrete proof that there were at least 50,000 of them living in the walls of our house, and every one of them was gunning for a big juicy bite of Fred Anders0n.
I think of it this way: the Brown Recluses have been IN the house whether we knew it or not, and neither of us was bitten until a few weeks ago when I likely jammed a feed bag up under my armpit and pissed one off. They’re not going to SUDDENLY start coming after us. From what I’ve read, as long as we’re careful where we stick our hands, we don’t need to be too terribly worried.
Fred, on the other hand, wanted to move all the damn cats to the garage and spray every inch of the house. And then he wanted to bug-bomb the house. Then he wanted to follow that up by maybe going through the house with the torch and burning anything that looked like it might possibly think about being a bug, in this life or the next.
We compromised. He closed the doors to my room, his room, and the foster room, and sprayed. I also ordered a buttload of glue traps, which should be here later this week. When they arrive, we’ll put them in all the out-of-the-way places where Brown Recluses like to hide, where the cats can’t get.
Pic of the Brown Recluse is here, since I know some of y’all would have the screaming tizzies if I posted it here.
YOU ARE WELCOME.
(Now watch. I’ll be bitten by seven Brown Recluses in the next week because I am not showing them the proper amount of fearful respect.)
If you haven’t “liked” Love & Hisses on Facebook, you might have missed my announcement Sunday night that the McMaos are going to Petsmart this afternoon.
Now, don’t give me the sad faces. Y’all knew this was coming. It’s time for those rambunctious, leggy monsters to go off and find their forever homes.
Maggie will stay here and recover from the three months of constant mothering and nursing, and eventually she will also go to Petsmart.
Today, when I’m not snuggling with and loving on those McMaos, I’ll be burning their baby pictures to DVDs to go with them to their new homes and making up bags of toys to send with them, too. This afternoon, I’ll be taking all six of them to Petsmart and getting them comfy in their new (temporary) digs. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they all go to their forever homes very very fast.
Y’all feel free to keep your fingers crossed, too!
(There will be McMao pictures for the rest of the week, since I have so many left on my hard drive!)
I love my Declan.
Please, Declan. Try to relax. I hate seeing you so tense.
::om nom nom nom nom::
“Try it! It’s tasty. And good for you!”
::om nom nom nom nom::
The vinegar box from Sam’s: BEST. BOX. EVER.
I love Declan’s pretty white ruff.
Declan and Ciara, chillin’.
Cillian, taking up as much of the bed as possible. I love his little smiling face.
Miss Cori in the sun.
Smilin’ Joe. Have you ever seen a happier cat?
Previously
2010: Greetings from Maine!
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: I like me a crisp pickle.
2006: One more year, and we get to move out to the country where we will hopefully be acres and acres from the nearest neighbors, and children will not treat our yard as their very own. One more year, one more year, one more year…
2005: I’m all about the quick and easy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge-har-har.
2004: If you set off fireworks for three hours straight, starting at 7:30, you are not only an asshole, you live near me.
2003: No entry.
2002: A bunch of links that are probably no longer good.
2001: Pictures from Maine.
2000: Unfortunately, I forgot that when I say things like “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, what I actually mean is “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, but he hears “Let’s go swimming naked and get frisky in the pool under the fireworks.”
I’m guessing from previous July 5 entries (spider drama notwithstanding) that your holiday weekend at Crooked Acres was relatively peaceful? Quiet neighbors are the best thing ever.
You must be going to Maine soon?
Oh, we’ll all miss the McMaos but I’m sure they’ll find great forever homes. They’ve grown to be such fantastic kitties. You and Maggie have been amazing moms for them and now they’re ready for the world.
I love the phrase ‘the screaming tizzies’!
It seemed like just yesterday that everyone was waiting for Maggie to give up them babies and now they’re off! We’ll definitely miss them. Such gorgeous gorgeous kitties!
Poor Maggie, I hope she doesn’t miss the kittens too much! I’m sure she’ll be glad for the break eventually, though.
I would be freaked the hell out if we had brown recluse spiders! I think I would worry more about the cats or dog getting bit since I know our cats find all bugs to be amazing toys!
Sending lots of luck and adoption karma that those snugly McMaoes are adopted up quick!
Since you aren’t going to PS at a God forsaken hour…just feel free to drop Declan off over here, no need for him to be scared to death at PS ; )
But, honestly…if you need help getting them set up, I can meet you over there…just let me know.
I don’t know how you do it Robyn – I would just sit around and cry every time I had to let go of a batch of those adorable babies. I have often thought that I’d like to foster cats but I don’t know if I could just foster them – I’d want to keep them all.
I agree with Danielle. I’d be a mess letting go of the little kitties. I’ll miss the McMaos and hope they are all adopted soon!
And thank you for not showing a picture of that spider. They give me the heebie-jeebies! EW!
I’ve read in several places that spraying is one of the worst things you can do, unless you get a professional in to spray specifically for brown recluses, because they are not as susceptible to the regular insecticides so what you wind up with is basically a dead-bug buffet that might give the brown recluses a bit of indigestion but otherwise doesn’t bother them a bit, and makes it much easier for them to eat and breed.
I do not KNOW that this is the case for brown recluses and I might be completely wrong – but I do know it’s why – where I live – we have to spray for scorpions, centipedes/millipedes, and (?tarantulas? ?camel spiders? some kind of spiderish thing) BEFORE spraying for roaches, ants, etc. If you kill off all the “minor” bugs, then the major bugs start getting fat and egg-happy with their suddenly easy-to-catch diet. *Eventually* it gets back to normal, as the population explosion of scorpions etc will either starve out once all the dead bugs are eaten, or will move elsewhere for food, but dealing with them until the “eventually” catches up is more than I’m willing to sign up for.
I would say there is a good chance that spider is a brown recluse. The violin on the back isn’t a confirming feature because there are several species with that pattern on them. The presence of 3 pairs of eyes in a semi-circle along with the violin mark is the best way to determine that it is a BR.
Elayne, I have heard that as well about the spraying. I have a degree in zoology and remember my entomology professor telling us about this particular trait of recluses. One of the speculated reasons that they are resistant to insecticides is that so very little of their bodies actually touch the sprayed surfaces (only the tiny tips of those spindly legs). Also, it is very hard to get the spray into the hidden locations that they usually hang out it. A professional is definitely called for in this situation. I began discovering BR spiders in the last apartment we lived in while we were packing to move out. I was SO squicked! Everything was shaken out and packed into plastic tubs (no cardboard!) because I didn’t want those f***ers moving with us.
You might not see me for a while ar your house. I am severely arachnophobia. And I still looked at that damn picture. *shudder*