Some Interesting Guests

It has been raining a lot the last few weeks here. Really good for the ground, I don't have to water my poor plants, however it also brings out creepy crawlies. One such is the tarantula. Now we have lived here for almost 4 years and had never even seen one, until last week. At dinner we hear Connor, our dog, barking outside at something in the ground. Wondering what it is and hoping its not a snake we go out to investigate. Sure enough there is a spider leg protruding from a hole in the ground. Now this isn't a little spider. The leg sticking out was as big as my pointer finger. Quite possibly the biggest spider I have ever seen. So what do you do with a spider in a hole? You try and get it out. What we didn't know was that apparently tarantula's dig vast caverns underground so there was no way we were going to get it out, but we had to try so we start trying to break down the cavern so we can remove it carefully from our yard. Now our soil is by no means soft. It is solid caliche (a layer of hardened calcium carbonate that forms in the desert and is basically impenetrable...yeah soil degree). Anyway I can't dig through it with a pick ax. But somehow this spider dug down into the ground and has made her home. We don't get very far and leave it thinking now its probably mad and won't come out anyway. So later Patrick tries to get it out with a stick unsuccessfully. We decide to leave it alone. Fast forward a few days and we see Connor barking again at something outside the hole and licking it. I see that it is a spider so we all run outside to see the tarantula. This however is spider #2! The big one is still in her hole (and dead at this time but I hadn't investigated it enough to know for sure...she probably laid eggs...joy). So we bring Connor in and let the other spider go on its merry way. I try and dig up the spider hole in fear of possible eggs, but can't dig past a certain point because she dug down so deep and the ground is so hard I can't get to it. I did however get far enough to find out she was dead. I am going to enlist these things to dig holes for my plants. How they do it I don't know. Then a couple of days later we found another dead one in the yard. That's 3 in one week! I "blame it on the rain, ya ya" (a little 80's music twist) . We have also had 2 scorpions. One Patrick found outside and one Connor caught and brought inside. That dog has a mouth of steel. Here is a picture of the spider #2. Definitely time to spray for bugs!
On a lighter note, we got a Wii Fit to go with the Wii. I have to admit that it is a blast. I am so sore from working out with it and it doesn't even feel like you are working out because it is so much fun. The kids love it too. Who needs a gym membership?

Lastly here are some pics of our last hike. It has been raining so much that the stream that runs through it had tons of water.

Elizabeth is usually on my back so I don't get any good pictures of her, but I took her out after we were done and tried to get a good picture of all three.

Now thanks to the rain the season for mowing has begun...and allergies. Yippee!