Snowy Speculations

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If I could paint, I would have tried to replicate the landscape very early this morning. Illuminated by the faintest hints of light and hours before sunrise, the cold, stark landscape lay completely still in its snowy blanket. Naked trees stood proudly and quietly against this backdrop, this palate of pure white an unforgiving place for any creature, big or small, to attempt to cross without drawing attention to its existence at this time. Even our ancient tire swing looked sleepy and droopy, suspended precariously close to the ground, as if the effort of hanging from a tree limb was too much for it. To the east, the only rays of light visible were the ones coming from the across the river, and even those seem hushed and muffled, like a child tired and murmuring not to wake them up just yet.  The young families down the road have gone all out with Christmas lights this year. Bright colours adorn the night skies and my neighbours even have a Christmas Cat and a Christmas Dinosaur that i
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Arachnid Habitat

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Arachnid Habitat 



When we purchased our home in 2009, I was thrilled with the concept that mail gets delivered directly to rural properties. Although our mailbox looked like it had seen better days or better decades for that matter, we decided that replacing it was at the bottom of the to-do list. After keeping our reserved mailbox open at the local post office for several weeks after our move to ensure that our mail was still getting delivered to us, we switched everything over to the new address.

Our move took place during a warm October that year and, for several weeks, the kids fought about who would get the mail every day. That novelty didn't last long at all and soon enough, it was Mom who was checking the mailbox on a daily basis. The only issue was that the mail was not the only thing resting in the mailbox. Tucked in its dark recesses, a couple of spiders had made their tiny cocoons and staked their claim, evidently receiving their mail there as well as ours. Squatters! They were obviously upset every time we opened the front hatch to remove the contents. More than once, I dropped the letters on the road as one hung by a thread, clamouring with all its might to climb back into the safety of the flyers and letters. 

Now I am not afraid of spiders, but, thanks to the childhood trauma caused by my oldest brother placing Daddy-Longlegs on my head at every opportunity, I am not a fan of them either! If I find a little spider in the house, I carefully take the broom, remove him or her as best I can and carry them outside to live to see another day. But I cannot stand when a pile of letters or the local paper is deposited on the kitchen counter and a little creature starts running madly in front of me to make its escape. Especially the black ones with a little patch of white or red (yuck). Then I'm done. Those don't qualify for the broom-rescue treatment!

Thanks to the local baseball bat crew that comes around and smashes mailboxes every few years, our ancient arachnid habitat soon landed in the garbage and a new one was installed. It was squeaky clean and I hoped it would stay that way.  Unfortunately spiders enjoy a new build as well as old construction and soon we were back to hosting these uninvited guests. 

Although I am a pretty organic person as I make sure that our household products are septic-friendly and don't allow weed killers or artificial fertilizers, out came the Raid bottle with a vengeance to put an end to this arachnid mail invasion. One has to make compromises in life and this was one of them!  Any spiders wishing to move to our new mailbox should have thought twice going forward as I'm sure there was a fog of Raid surrounding it for several days. As much as I don't like them, I hope they at least have the decency to relocate to our house so that I can carry them out with the broom to live to see another day!

Lolita Schimann Hale


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