Simple start in progress. 4 x 4 mixed media on arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2017 Sheila Delgado

Think I might have botched it. Debated about adding a soft wash to the petals. But I think it will just get messy. Used Inktense watercolor pencils this round. Made additions to the other two starts, will share soon.

Do you remember my spider snafus from about a month ago? They have started again. (Links for the curious. No photos here, because I don’t want to see them in my media gallery every time I write a post.) I had just stopped checking my bed each night. And Bam. No, not in the bed. Under it. I spotted it on the floor mat by my chair. A huge dark spot. A wolf spider. Turned to get a shoe to kill it with, looked again, and it was gone. Matches the carpet perfectly. Camo Turbo Spider. Spent 30 minutes literally tearing the bed apart. Needed help to lift the mattress and the box spring.

There it was. So I am standing there, holding the box spring, stretching a foot to mash it. Because it just ain’t over until there are spider guts on your shoe. It was slower by this time. It had popped out from under the bed at one point, and I spritzed it with hair spray. You can laugh, but it works. Slows them so they are easier to catch.

Wolf spiders vary in size from small species with only ½ inch leg spans to large ones whose legs may stretch out 5 inches. This one was at least two inches long. That was two days ago, and since then, there has been a spider by my window, and desk and art supplies.  A cricket on my closet door, and a spider in the bath next to my room. Enough!

There are 200 types of wolf spider!!!! 40,000 in world, that we know of. Far too many if you ask me. I know, I know, they are beneficial. And I am just fine with them existing, as long as I don’t have to see them. Or worry about finding them in my bed.

I ventured outside today, to take some photos of the flower pots. Saw a HUMONGOUS grasshopper. Must have been five inches at least. I only about half of it. I was leaning in close to some pink flowers… and then backed away slowly.

I walked around the back of the house, and saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in person. No, take that back. I did meet up with a tarantula near Miramar once. This Garden Spider. was actually almost attractive. Follow the link and you will see how colorful and dramatic it is. It was a female. Females can lay more than one egg sac, sometimes three or four. Each sac can contain almost 1,000 yellowish eggs. Spiders “hatch” from their eggs mid-winter but do not emerge from the safety of the egg sac until the following spring. Three or four thousand could be hatching??!!!!

Yuck!

OK, one more gross bug story. A few months after we moved in, friends came to visit. As they were leaving one day, I opened the front door and this fell on the door jamb. Right in front of me. I was looking at my friends, so I heard it first. A very solid thud. That thing was quick! It made it about six feet into the house before Mark carefully kicked it out the door.

Maybe that is why they call it the wild west.