🚀 go-pugleaf

Seth Fehrs wrote:
> 
> Just like to remind y'all that black widows are endemic to the area
> (I saw a few this weekend).   Supposedly they are rarely fatal
> but can be rather unpleasant, though many bites are mild.
> 
> I saw several one summer as an installer of aluminum siding.  They
> liked out of the way eaves and other nook n' crannies on houses.
> Today I was moving some rocks lining the driveway where the
> grass was overgrown so I could mow it, and picked up one
> rock and noticed a big ol' black spider guarding an egg sac.
> It had the classic shape; turning it over with a stick, I saw the
> hourglass.   This one was big, two or three times the size of
> what I was used to.
> 
> Poking around the grass, I noticed at least one other, and it too
> had an egg sac.  Hopefully the mulching mower got them all.
> 
> Seth Fehrs
> 
> Don't get me started on poision ivy.

I got bitten by something a couple of months ago that was extremely 
unpleasant.  It was dark but best guess is a black widow.  I had put some 
trash in the back of my truck that included some meat I had kept in the 
fridge too long to cook.  A couple of hours later I went to the dumpster 
and when I took that particular bag out, something bit me and it 
instantly burned.  Bag and hand go flying with a very loud, partially cut 
off curse.  Made the hornets and yellow jackets I've been stung by seem 
like wimps.  After 40 minutes and the pain hadn't gone down any and 
calling my corpsman and him telling me,"You ain't gone yet?", I went to 
the emergency room.  I endured the normal non-critical waiting time and 
it was a little fascinating to feel the poison move down my finger, 
across to the adjoining knuckles, and then down my hand.  Didn't feel 
good either.  It swelled up so quick that when I searched for a stinger, 
I mistook what was probably a scratch from my cat for the point of 
impact.  The next day I was able to tell it was a really tiny spot.    
Barely visible.  If it was a black widow, they are definitely something 
not to mess with.