The Dangerous Dark

I walk around outside my house all the time in the dark.  If the neighbors could see me I know they'd think I'm insane because most of the time I have one hand up in front of my face as I'm walking.  This is why:



I don't know the name of these spiders, but they are fat brown squatty looking things that build a new web every night. They have nice webs and it's kind of impressive that they do all that work every day. They like to hang their webs out in the middle of an open space where you never expect a spider could put a web. They're sneaky that way. Sometimes the anchor lines are ten feet long.  They almost always hang them with the center about 5 feet above the ground which is face level for me.

Many times I have wrapped one of the webs around my head.  I'm pretty sure people in the next county hear me screaming when this happens, even though I scream with my teeth clenched just in case something wants to run in. I'm not fond of spiders and I'm less fond of the webs actually touching me.  One good thing I can say about these spiders is that they run up one of the support lines when something big walks through the web.  I appreciate them not running around on my face, although it doesn't stop the screaming.

This spider hung her web right above my car hood.  I had a nice shot lined up with my cell phone when Scrappy jumped up on the hood and started walking into the web.  You can see the spider is headed for a support line.  Half a second earlier it was smack in the middle of the web.

This time of year I also have a flashlight.  That's because I don't want to step on one of these:



Click on the photo to go to my flickr page and see it full size.  This is a copperhead snake. I was on the way out to my small gold fish pond one night a few years ago and saw him next to the sidewalk. I was checking the pond for snakes. There wasn't a snake in the pond but there was a huge spider eating one of the fish.

Copperheads are really hard to see in the leaves like this.  When they are coiled up in the leaves their skin makes a rosette pattern. A few nights ago I caught Scrappy and Pawlie playing with one. I heard a crack and Scrappy jumped up about two feet and back about three.  The crack was the snake striking.  Fortunately, Scrappy wasn't bitten.  I called the cats over to me and looked for what they'd been after.  It took several minutes for me to find the snake.  I didn't see it until it started to move slowly away.  

So if you see me walking around the yard at night with one hand up in front of my face, looking at the ground with a flashlight you'll know...I can explain that. 

Creatures of the night

For a while we had several 'possums that helped our outdoor cats eat their food. I haven't seen them in a while and I think this boy (girl?) probably chased them off. He doesn't look too big here but he is four or five inches taller than the cats. He walks up, walks around so he is in front of the cats and hisses at them. Proving that they have some smarts, the cats run off. A raccoon could probably leave the cats in little pieces if he wanted to. Callie did bop him in the forehead once before she ran off. After that I started putting a separate bowl for the raccoon away from the cat's food because I was afraid he'd hurt them. He's not afraid of me or the camera. One time I opened the front door, stuck the camera almost in his face, and took several flash pictures. He posed for me.



About a week ago I opened the front door. Several things happened all at once.

1. The two cats jumped off the quarter pipe (skateboarding ramp) at the end of the front walk and ran toward me.


2. This boy was walking up the front walk and stopped about halfway up to look at me.


3. I became aware that some round growly monster thing about the size of a bowling ball was right in front of me eating a bowl of cat food and growling loudly. At first glance it seemed hair was stuck out everywhere, making is resemble a demented porcupine.

Unknown growling things freak me out. Remember, it's dark, it's the country, there is only moonlight. I screamed. The growly thing turned to look at me and I realized it was just a young raccoon and that it had been growling over its shoulder at the big raccoon. Small raccoon took off, knocking the cat food and the cat water over. Both cats and both raccoons converged on the same spot in the walkway and diverged, having totally ignored each other.

A couple of nights later my husband saw two little raccoons and the big one in the yard so I guess we are feeding three raccoons now. Or maybe the small raccoon brought his sister to see the screaming woman. I'd like to feed the outdoor cats in the house, but Callie is too feral, and both she and Buddie are extremely aggressive toward my other cats.

Speaking of Buddie, here he is. He showed up a couple of years ago and had apparently been abused. For a long time if we picked up something in the yard he ran off and hid. He was really shy. He's pretty mellow now, except when he's plotting to beat the stuffing out of one of my other cats.

Sunday I noticed that Buddy's paw was extremely swollen. I gave him antibiotics and looked for an abscess. He went to the vet today and had the abscess drained. The vet said he'd been bitten by a snake probably five days ago. Yikes! The swelling was from infection, not poison. He didn't limp or anything until Sunday. He's back home tonight and the swelling is much reduced.