October 28, 2021

As Melissa and I were driving along one of the main streets of our nearby town we came across a yard filled with dozens of spooky figures arraigned in a display across the front of a residence.   I figured this was a photo op so I asked Melissa to pull over so I could get a shot.  She dutifully pulled off the main throughfare and onto the side street allowing me to get get the perfect shot of the Halloween display.  While we were trying to get the shot, a resident of the subdivision pulled up behind us and rather than going around, decided to honk to get us to move.  We took our photo and moved on.

I received a post on my ESPN feed concerning a similar display on the lawn of retired defensive lineman, Bruce Smith.  Smith spent nearly two decades terrorizing opposing quarterbacks in the NFL and now has a Halloween display to prove it.  The Hall of Fame defensive end put his career on display by decorating his front lawn with 76 tombstones, representing the 76 quarterbacks he sacked during his career with the Buffalo Bills and Washington Football Team.  Smith was inspired by Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, who started the trend by putting tombstones and taking a shot of them on his front yard of the quarterbacks he sacked during the 2021 season.  During his time in the NFL, Smith became one of the most feared defenders to play the game as part of the Bills’ four AFC title teams in the early 1990’s.  Smith is the NFL’s all-time sacks leader with 200 during his 19-year career.  Smith and his impressive graveyard now reside in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The annual fall ritual of Halloween and autumn decorating includes brightly colored pumpkins, dried corn stalks, hay bales, scarecrows and autumn leaves which are on display on porches, doorways, and yards throughout communities.  The scarier and more frightening Halloween decor comes along with fall decorations as well, and many people add their own personal vibe to the spooky flair of Halloween.  In Northeast Ohio they have even dedicated a webpage to identify local yards they believe to be “over the top” with their display.  These include inflatables, statues, lights set to musical scores, and scary scenes.  The page encourages visitors to drop by the various locations, and to share an additional display if you think it is worthy.  It seems Halloween is competing with Christmas.

Thoughts:  Thousands of years ago there was an end of the summer festival that was known as Samhain.  Samhain tradition had many deep supernatural practices that were an integral part of the annual festival.  The uneducated people of the time were fearful of the season and believed that the end of the harvest and the onset of winter created an opportunity for the spirits of the deceased to return and mingle with the living.  I am not sure if that could have been any worse than getting sacked by Bruce Smith.  Samhain and Smith represent two of humanities greatest fears, fear of the unknown and fear of the known.  We seem to be more frightened by the unknown we allow our minds to imagine all the “what if’s” that are possible.  When we know what our fear is we can face it.  We are at a point where we can face the pandemic and overcome the frightening aspects.  Now we just need to do it.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 27, 2021

While I did not write about it, I was surprised (not shocked) when I saw the bird food I came in to buy in late September had been downsized and moved to interior shelves in the market I frequent.  The shelves were now empty, but they had all been labeled with the products that were expected to shortly fill them.  The bird food aisle had been designated to accept the new Christmas lights that will soon adorn the houses of our community.  I recalled this experience because last night I noticed the first of the Christmas commercials that will soon dominate our TV ads.  I am not saying they were the first, but at least they were the first to creep into my notice.

When I checked online, I found that a lot of people seem to have the feeling that Christmas marketing seems to get earlier every year.  It is still the beginning of fall and most of us are focused on Halloween, but there are already Christmas and holiday products hitting shelves.  This phenomenon is known as “Christmas Creep.”  Christmas creep refers to the sense that the holiday season is gradually lengthening, beginning earlier each year, typically in early fall.  The term was added to Merriam Webster’s “Words We’re Watching,” who commented: “It seems to never be employed in celebratory fashion but rather functions as a shorthand for the existential dread and disgust that many people feel at the apparent increasing commercialization and banality of the season.”  Ya think?

According to retail expert Andrew Smith, co-founder and managing partner for the Americas of Think Uncommon, the creep is more imagined than real.  “Over the last 20 years it has certainly been brought forward in stores slightly, but generally speaking it’s the same most years.”  However, he added that pressure on supply chains during the pandemic has sped up the shift to e-commerce, leading retailers to try to creep the Christmas period back to help boost sales.  During 2020, shoppers were concerned about potential lockdowns, and many began shopping for the holiday season even earlier.  During 2021 the concern has shifted from lockdowns to supply chain issues.  As I found recently, the merchant may sell the product, then caution they cannot guarantee when it will arrive.  Sitting in the port is not the same as on the shelf.  

Thoughts:  I found another interesting shift in holiday shopping that began in 2020 that will likely continue through at least 2021.  Many shoppers wanted to get gifts early but were unsure or even unable to find the items they wanted.  That gave rise to an increase in local gift cards.  The gift card allows the recipient to go to the store at their leisure and pick their choice of items that existed on the shelves.  This has pros and cons.  It is hard to get excited over my new bike on Christmas morning when it comes wrapped in an envelope holding a gift card.  Then again, you never worry about getting Bunny Suit Pajamas from Aunt Clara.  Whether the December holiday is Hanukah, Christmas, or Kwanza, the point is not about gifts but about the love included in sharing.   It may not be so bad to allow this gift to creep back into the rest of the year.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 26, 2021

Melissa had several appointments with the doctor last week and that generally entails my going along to listen to the results and lend support during the long hours of waiting.  I was not worried since I have the crossword game I play on my phone and the local newspaper that provides a crossword each morning.  I retrieved the paper from the driveway on Monday and as I sat, I began to work the puzzle.  I filled in the first across but when I got to the second set of letters the clue did not seem to meet the spaces available in the grid.  I am sometimes fooled by the obvious answer rather than the answer the puzzle intends, so I switched and tried to complete the down clues.  Again, none of my answers matched the number of letters on the grid.  I randomly tried several other clues and realized the grid and the clues did not match.  I put the puzzle aside and went back to my phone.

Crossword puzzles are said to be the most popular and widespread word game in the world, yet they have a short history.  The first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century.  They were an elementary kind and derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally.  These were printed in children’s puzzle books and various periodicals.  In the US, the crossword developed into a serious adult pastime.  The first known published crossword puzzle in a Sunday newspaper was December 21, 1913, in the New York World.  During the early 1920’s other newspapers picked up the pastime and within a decade crossword puzzle grids were featured in most American newspapers.  This is also when the familiar crossword grid of today was formed.

When I tried to answer the crossword for Tuesday and Wednesday, I found the same problem with the grid.  I was wary when I picked up Thursday’s paper, and thinking I needed to call the publisher and complain.  The crossword grid gives me far more pleasure than the short news stories I glean from the other pages.  The second page of the front section is where the errata items are published.  You can imagine my joy when I found Monday’s clues and grid republished in the Thursday paper.  This happened again on Friday (Tuesday’s grid) and Saturday (Wednesday’s grid).  I was able to complete two puzzles on each of the three days.  It was not the same, but I was happy to complete my grid.

Thoughts:  Not being able to complete the morning crossword put the entire first part of my week askew.  I have a steady routine of getting up, starting my coffee while I go outside and retrieve the paper and the mail, taking my OTC vitamins, and then settling down to completing the crossword grid.  While I appreciated the double grid opportunities later in the week, I would have liked it more if I could have done them at the appointed time.  I sometimes marvel at how little things can throw me off, and at how happy I am when they are corrected.  During the pandemic all the little things we normally do have been thrown off.  Like most of us I was not happy.  With the rapid rise in vaccinations the country decided to go back to normal, resulting in a drop in vaccinations and a rise in covid cases.  There are times when it is more important to protect those around you (and yourself) than returning to a normal grid.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 23, 2021

I ran across a post by Audubon that noted weird migratory patterns being recorded by GPS tagged geese beginning September 2020.  The tule is one of a protected population of Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons elgasi) that nests in Alaska and winters in California marshes.  The US Geological Survey has been keeping tabs on the bird as part of a waterfowl-tracking project since 2015.  The tags allowed researchers to track the bird’s location by computer.  Rather than stopping at Summer Lake in central Oregon, one bird was 300 miles off course in the Idaho Panhandle.  This was the first time anyone had ever confirmed the Tule Goose in Idaho.  The other three tagged Tule also following offbeat migration routes.  The team realized the unusual flight paths lined up with areas of dense wildfire smoke during one of the worst US fire seasons in history.

When I looked online, I found that according to Brian Wolfer of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, wildfires can be both destructive and beneficial to local wildlife.  Essentially, the fires create, “a disturbance on the landscape that changes habitat.”  Species like raptors who hunt rodents running from the flames benefit from wildfire, as do beetles that move into dead wood and lay eggs, and woodpeckers that feed on the beetles and nest in hollow trees.  Fire exposes new grass, shrubs, and vegetation that feed elk and deer and plentiful food means more milk and fawns grow faster.  The flip side is animals that depend on old growth forests can struggle for decades trying to find suitable habitat and if the sagebrush burns, the sage grouse won’t have food in winter or a place to hide from predators and raise their young.  The hotter and faster the fires burn, the harder it is for less mobile animals to find suitable habitat.  Those caught in the flames often die.

Corey Overton of the Western Ecological Research Center published an analysis last week of the Tule Geese’s response to wildfire smoke.  The findings add nuance to the story of last year’s fall migration bird die-off in the Southwest and clarify the risk birds face from wildfires.  The wayward geese tried to avoid the smoke, and in the process doubled their migration time and wasted precious energy, and other migratory birds face similar or worse consequences.  Things went wrong for the Tule as they encountered smoke off the coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and all four birds began deviating from their previous migratory paths.  Three of the birds touched down separately on the Pacific Ocean looking to conserve energy but unable to eat.  The fourth goose continued south over land but turned around when it reached the Oregon border to escape the thickening smoke.  The birds generally fly just a few hundred feet above the ground, but three of the geese climbed to more than 13,000 feet at various points trying to rise above columns of smoke.  There were additional pauses in farm fields and more turnarounds before the birds finally reached their stopover destination.

Thoughts:  Overton explained, “There’s three main options to avoid air pollution (smoke).  Go around it, go over it, and decrease your energetic use.  And these birds tried to do all three.”  They did not always succeed.  While the trek from Alaska to Summer Lake usually takes about 9 days, it took more than twice as long trying to evade the smoke.  Since the Tule fly in large flocks, the four birds tracked each likely represents hundreds of flock mates.  Like the geese, humans devise ways to avoid the pollution and smoke caused by climate change.  Unlike the geese, we could do something to resolve it.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 22, 2021

I mentioned how excited I was last week to be able to drive to Kansas for some vacation time.  I also had high expectations of scoring several new birds while I was there.  I mentioned the bust I encountered while visiting the wildlife refuge in Oklahoma.  The marshes were dry, and the birds scare, even though I was able to spot a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).  Having lived in Kansas I was confident I could identify an Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) since this is the Kansas state bird.  I also knew the pigeons are rampant in Wichita’s downtown section.  Even driving downtown and through the prairies I saw neither.  While I was able to id several different hawks, they were all too quick to get a picture.  At least I saw three different pair of parakeets at my mom’s new location.

When I looked online, I found that a parakeet is any one of many small to medium-sized species of parrot comprising multiple genera.  The name parakeet is derived from the French word perroquet, but is a pseudo-francism, as perroquet means parrot in French, while the French for parakeet is perruche.  The parakeet comprises about 115 species of birds that are seed-eating parrots of small size, slender build, and long, tapering tails.  The Australian budgerigar, also known as “budgie” (Melopsittacus undulatus), is the most common parakeet and was first described by zoologists in 1891.  It is the most popular species of parakeet kept as a pet in North America and Europe.  Budgies are the only species in the genus Melopsittacus.  In the wild, the species is green and yellow with black, scalloped markings on the nape, back, and wings.  Coloration varies in captive colonies. 

I was recently asked how many birds I had in my bird count.  The first year I was able to identify (and photograph) 32 different species.  This year I am up to 51 different species (with 2 ½ months left).  It is not that I have traveled more as much as I have been more attentive when I do travel and stop to photograph the birds.  Even though I saw three different variations of parakeet at mom’s, I knew I could not add them to my bird count.  The count is designed to identify the existence and range of wild birds, not captive birds. 

Thoughts:  Less than a century after being discovered by Europeans, parakeets were being kept as pets. British sailors returning from the east coast of Australia reported seeing huge flocks of small green birds, later identified as budgerigars.  According to legend, the merchants marketing parakeets in the early 20th century decided that the word “budgerigar” was too weird for Americans, so they marketed the bird as a “parakeet.”  The Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was once a common bird known to people in in the East and Midwest America but had been hunted to extinction by 1918.  Extinction was the result of deforestation in the 18th and 19th centuries, combined with hunting for their feathers (women’s hats) and to reduce crop predation.  Much like the European beaver, the Carolina parakeet fell prey to the insatiable human need to “display.”  Do the work.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 21, 2021

When I walked into the kitchen earlier this week, I noticed a large wolf spider on the floor.  While I realize it is the fall and the spiders are more active trying to get their egg sacs set before the winter, it still surprised me to see her indoors.  We spray our yard quarterly to keep down the ants and slugs that infest the green space (primarily for moles) and place a barrier around the exterior of the house.  I mentioned that while the black ants are still rampant in the yard, they have not been seen inside the house since we started spraying.  I know I brought the false widow from my mom’s yard last week.  I am certain Melissa brought the wolf when she began moving her succulents off the front porch and inside.  I put a glass over the wolf and moved it outside.

When I looked online, I found the Carolina Wolf Spider (Hogna carolinensis), is commonly found across North America.  It is the largest North American wolf spider, typically measuring .4-.8 inches (18–20 mm) for males and about 1-1.4 inches (22–35 mm) for females.  The wolf spider is mottled brown with a dark underside and males have orange coloration on their sides.  Wolf spiders live in either self-made burrows or ones they find.  Like all wolf spiders, H. carolinensis does not make a web to catch prey but instead hunt by ambushing prey from their burrows.  These spiders are particularly known for the females carrying their egg sacs on their bodies during the incubation period (note the white sac in the picture).  The Carolina wolf spider also has a unique type of venom that both paralyzes their prey and helps prevent microbes from their prey from infecting them.  Unlike the insects it preys on, the wolf spider can thermoregulate, which is important for animals that inhabit desert ecosystems or locations with large temperature swings.  That would include Arkansas.

When I was researching the False widow, one of the sites had suggested the way to capture and release a spider was to put a glass over them, then slide a ridged piece of paper under the glass, and then pick the captured spider up for release.  I had read this previously, and even practiced it on occasion.  I have always liked wolf spiders and thought this would be a good way to preserve the wolf.  Since we spray and granulate the yard, I thought it would be best to move the wolf to another location to help ensure its survival.  I placed it on the ground just off our spray boundary.  I noted there were already two small spider borrows in the bare ground I set it on.  I did not know what was in them but assumed it was other wolf spiders.  I hope this female and her brood will make it until next year.

Thoughts:  After I picked the wolf spider up in the glass, I offered to show it to Melissa.  Oddly, Melissa did not want to see the spider when I offered.   While Melissa may not have been impressed, others have been.   Hogna carolinensis was voted as the state spider of South Carolina in 2000 after an initial suggestion by a third-grade student.  While there is not a significant difference in the sprint speed of the Carolina wolf spider between males and females, there is a difference in chances a male or a female will flee from a threat.  Researchers believe that this is because male spiders do not own burrows as often as females, so they are not able to find a safe escape in their burrows as their female counterparts.  In humans this is known as the fight or flight response.  The response is triggered by the release of the hormones that prepare your body to either stay and deal with a threat or run away to safety.  There are some threats that we cannot run from.  That is why we develop vaccines.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 20, 2021

Over the weekend Melissa and I decided to do some fall cleaning on our yard.  The cool temperatures meant the grass was slowing down, but the leaves had begun to fall.  I am not a raker, and instead prefer to mulch the leaves into the ground.  This is not a gardening thing but is based on pure laziness.  Melissa set to weeding her succulent beds while I tackled the rose bush bed.  Since it was late in the year, I took the weed eater to the bed and then spread the last three bags of mulch that I had purchased last summer on the bed.  When I went to the back patio, I noticed there were several wildflowers growing through the fence.  I have not been as diligent in weed eating the back of the house as I have the front (no one sees the back, right?).  As I grabbed the invasive aster Melissa told me to stop.  She had enjoyed seeing this plant as she worked from her office nook.  I left it alone.

When I looked online, I found the Frost Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum), is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae that is native to central and eastern North America in both Canada and the US.  The aster is a perennial, herbaceous plant that may reach 8 to 47 inches (20 to 120 centimeters) tall.  Its flowers have white ray florets and yellow disk florets.  It is widespread and common throughout its range, and its natural habitat includes prairies, open woodlands, and outcrops.  In general, asters respond positively to disturbance, and often occupy sunny, weedy habitats.  The Frost Aster can be used to extend the floral season in gardens, as it blooms for about six weeks in autumn.  The common name derives from the tiny white hairs that sometimes lend its leaves a hoary appearance.  Frost Aster is aggressive, spreading by seeds and rhizomes.  Apparently, it also likes yards that are not weeded.

Members of the Symphyotrichum genus were originally classified in the genus Aster, which contained over six hundred species.  All 600 have all been reclassified into ten different genera.  The genus name Symphyotrichum is from the Greek sýmphysis, meaning “growing together,” and thríx, or “hair.”  The scientific naming of plants (botanical nomenclature) gives every plant a two-part name called a binomial.  The first name is the genus, and the second name is the species (taxonomy).  Since both names are (usually) derived from Latin roots, they are italicized to indicate a foreign origin.  Taxonomic systems were initially based on superficial relationships like similar reproductive features and other easily visible traits and did not take evolutionary ancestry into account.  As DNA technology advances botanists are reclassifying plants by their genetic relationships.  This has resulted in a flurry of recent name changes that have caused gardeners headaches as they try and keep up with the scientific names.  I find it a struggle to remember the common names.

Thoughts:  It is interesting to note that an Aster is identified as a perennial weed and a wildflower.  The Oxford Dictionary defines a weed as “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.”  Weeding then is “removing unwanted plants from an area of ground.”  The various Aster/Symphyotrichum species grow wild throughout North America.  In pastures they are called wildflowers.  In cultivated fields, they are called weeds.  When the same species is found in a flower garden, they are called perennial flowers.  Our understanding of the species is based on how it relates to our wants and needs.  While this may work for plants, we cannot allow this to be how we relate to people.  People need to be understood on their own merit and sense of place, not what is convenient to us.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 19, 2021

We received a good rain last week and the field behind our house still had standing water as the sun began to go down.  When Melissa looked out our back window, she called me over to see the eerie fog which had formed over the field.  The fog layer was very thick, but only extended a few feet above the ground.  Since this is October and near Halloween, I was reminded of the scary slasher films where the antagonist would appear within the fog and proceed to carve up the residents of the small town.  I was glad I could see above the low fog bank.  I did not feel in the mood to be carved up.

When I looked online, I found that fog forms when the difference between air temperature and dew point is less than 4.5F (2.5C).  Fog begins to form when water vapor condenses into tiny water droplets that are suspended in the air.  Water vapor normally begins to condense on condensation nuclei such as dust, ice, and salt to form clouds.  Fog, like its elevated cousin stratus, is a stable cloud deck which tends to form when a cool, stable air mass is trapped underneath a warm air mass, and normally occurs at a relative humidity near 100%.  This can occur from added moisture in the air or falling ambient air temperature.  Fog may also occur at lower humidity’s and can sometimes fail to form with relative humidity at 100%.  I think that explanation left me in a fog.

It was interesting to find that fog can form in several different ways, and that each type of fog has a different name assigned to it.  I found 10 different types of fog, and these types were broken further into other names given depending on where it forms, how it forms, and the conditions in which it forms. The ground fog that we had encountered is fog obscuring less than 60% of the sky and does not extend to the base of any overhead clouds.  The term is usually a synonym for shallow radiation fog.  Radiation fog is formed by the cooling of land after sunset by infrared thermal radiation in calm conditions with a clear sky.  The cooling ground then cools adjacent air by conduction, causing the air temperature to fall and reach the dew point, forming fog.  In perfect calm, the fog layer can be less than a meter thick.  Radiation fog is most common in autumn and early winter.  This was the type of fog we had.  For me, rather than all the different names, it was just fog.

Thoughts:  When I took a linguistics class in college, I found the Inuit Indians of Alaska have dozens of words to refer to snow and ice.  Anthropologist John Steckley, in his book White Lies about the Inuit (2007), notes that many often cite 52 as the number of different words for snow in Inuktitut (the Inuit language).  This belief in a high number of words for snow and ice has been sharply criticized by many linguists and anthropologists.  Regardless, Inuktitut has a far superior ability to distinguish between the different types of snow than most languages.  The point being made was language is used to distinguish between things that are important in your life.  For the Inuit, the different types of ice and snow mean survival.  While fog may not be important to me, I do use other words to differentiate between valued things (Nana vs. Grandma).  We need to recognize the important things in our lives and keep them dear.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 18, 2021

The trending news last week concerned the Arkansas boy who won USA Mullet Championships.  Allan Baltz is a 12-year-old sixth grader who was adopted out of foster care when he was about 4-years old.  Baltz had already faced trials as he had been born with a rare genetic syndrome.  His mother, Lesli, heard about the USA Mullet Championships and told Allan he should enter.  Allan had no desire to enter until he heard there was prize money, with the top prize of $2,500.  Allan decided that if he won, he would donate the money to organizations which help foster kids find their forever homes.  USA Mullet Championships announced the winners on its Facebook and Allan won the title in the kid’s division by nearly 900 votes over the next closest competitor, with 25,178 votes.  Lesli Baltz said, “He has a ridiculous mullet now.  The boy we adopted through foster care instantly wanting to give back.”  Allan is all business there.

When I looked online, I found there are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the US. They range in age from infants to 21 years old (in some states) but the average age of a child in foster care is more than 8 years old.  There are also slightly more boys than girls.  Children and youth enter foster care because they have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by their parents or guardians.  All these children have experienced loss and some form of trauma.  In other ways, foster children are no different from children who are not in foster care.  They are learning and growing, playing, hanging out with friends, and they need the love and stability a permanent home provides.  Allan was provided his permanent home, and his mullet became his expression of acceptance.

The USA Mullet Championships Facebook page says the history of this business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back style has been around way before it was popularized by actors and rock stars in the 1980’s. According to some historians, the mullet has been around since at least Ancient Greece, where the style was as much for function as it was for fashion.  Cropped hair around the face with longer locks in the back allowed for both visibility and a protective layer of hair for your neck.  Homer even described a haircut that sounds eerily familiar in The Iliad: “their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the backs.”  The Greeks weren’t the only ones sporting the mullet.  There is evidence that Neanderthals and our oldest ancestors would wear this ‘do’, as well.  Divisions in the mullet championships included kids, teens, men, and lest the women be left out, femullet.

Thoughts:  When I worked for the State of Utah, I sported a mullet for a short while.  What I liked about the style was the business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back aspect.  This allowed me to grow my hair long but keep a trimmed look for the lawyers and businesspeople who came into my office trying to impress me.  I must admit, at the time I did not know the style was called a mullet.  The Mullet Championships page rated Billy Ray Cyrus as fourth on their list of ten iconic mullets.  Cyrus’ achy breaky mullet of the early 1990’s is what caused me to drop the hairstyle.  I found I was neither achy nor breaky enough to sport the style.  Hair styles are often associated with cultural movements.  That is true for both the mullet and the weave popular today and it was true of the long-haired hippies of my youth.  Hair styles can provide instant acceptance into a group, or they can alienate the person from outsiders.  We need to see beyond the image projected and take time to know the person within.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 16, 2021

One of the things bequeathed to me by mom during her downsizing was a small clay pitcher pot had gotten while in El Salvador that was about 4 inches high.  This was one of several clay pots that were unceremoniously strewn in her rock garden to add visual contrast.  I picked it up, brushed the dirt off the sides, and then put it in with two larger clay pots I was bringing home for Melissa’s succulents.  When I got home, I noticed there was debris inside the pot so I tried to clean it out with water and even used a straw to scrape out what I could.  Then I left it on the counter to dry.  You can imagine my surprise when I came in the kitchen several hours later and saw a large black spider drying herself on the handle of the pot.  Apparently, I had not gotten all the debris out of the pot when I cleaned it.

While the spider looked like a North American Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans), also known as a southern black widow, it did not have the distinctive red hourglass on its abdomen.  When I looked online, I found the False Black Widow (Steatoda grossa), was commonly mistaken for the actual black widow.  The false widow is a common species of spider in the genus Steatoda.  It is a cosmopolitan species found in many parts of the world, including North America, Australasia, and Europe.  Like black widows, the female false widow is 6-10.5 mm (1/4-1/2 inches) in length and dark colored with a round, bulbous abdomen.  Typical coloration ranges from purplish brown to black, with light-colored markings, but no red hourglass.  The false widow may shed up to six times (instars) before reaching maturity.  According to Charles Hogue (Insects of the Los Angeles Basin, 1993), it reportedly preys on black widows.  This seems like a good spider to have around.

When I checked the pot again, I noticed there was still a lot of debris in the bottom of the pot.  The false widow likes to make her nest in small holes of crevasses and then spins her web around the opening.   The female spiders can live up to six years, while the typical lifespan for the male is 1-1.5 years, as males often die shortly after mating (if not eaten).  The web is so strong that it can catch and hold small vertebrates.  When the spider feels the vibrations in the web, she will rush out and wind her silk tightly around the victim, immobilizing her prey, and then inject her venom.  The false widow is even known to capture and eat the predators that come for her.  I decided while outside may be good, I did not want it in my house.  I flushed it.

Thoughts:  When I was excavating at Petra, Jordan, I worked as the lab artifact curator.  That meant I had to sort what was uncovered, clean the debris from the artifacts, select representative samples, and place them in piles by provenience so they could be analyzed by the Director.  The one caution I was given was not to scrub the dirt off the pot.  A curator on another excavation had roughly scrubbed the pottery and had washed the painted design off the earthenware.  There are times when we are too aggressive and destroy things that are beneficial (spiders and paint).  There are other times when we are too passive and do not take the action needed to save lives.  The trick is to determine what is real and what is false.  As one of our state officials says on nightly promo spots, “get off google and listen to the experts”.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.