by Mary Houle

"Charlotte's Web," every day
Every day, twice a day, as I enter the duck pen I have to remember to check for and duck under spider webs when I open the barn door. The spiders there tend to extend their wicked webs to include the areas that I regularly have to touch. The grain bin and the bags of bedding leaves are piled on the side in stacks with a lacey spider web covering. I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty, however, if I imagine a big fat spider sitting on my head and crawling down into my face as I drive to work after morning chores...well you can imagine...is there anything more frightening on a morning commute than a distracted driver?

One day I waltzed into the duck's pen just after a nest of little spiders had hatched. The tiny arachnids were all over the big mamma's web. Jeez, it was just like the book and movie "Charlotte's Web" a troupe of baby spiders swinging on bungee cord strands of silk looking to catch a ride on a coattail, sleeve, or maybe this farmer's hat and hair. I know the little critters will not harm me, but they give me the creeps nonetheless. Think not? Do you recall the movie "Arachnophobia?" Now, you try not to shudder the next time you forget to look into the popcorn bowl before you scoop up and toss a handful of popped kernels into your mouth.

So, I leave them alone - except to admire the number of other creepy-crawly things that have meet their fate in the spiders web, to which I say, "Hah, take that!"

Too many snakes
Snakes get the upper hand (so to speak), every time. I bet that when they slither down into their snake pit they are laughing their tails off at the terrified humans they have just scared out of their wits. It never fails. I have happened upon loads of snakes. Occasionally I come across a garter snake mama with her baby, although usually it is one snake at a time (whew). Snakes don't exactly make noise (when they laugh or when they slither), and the element of surprise is what they have going for them. It works without fail.

On any given day when walking down the path to the garden I can pass by a stand of grass and observe it moving to the side of me; I take note and inventory. Has my heart leapt out of my chest? If not, I proceed to the garden and lumber along with tools clanging in my bucket or wheelbarrow as an alarm to all. Ground vibrations send my warning ahead as I proceed to the garden to toil or harvest.

I do not want to hear that snakes are good for the garden, because they are bad for toads and frogs. If you can say, "I have seen a lot of snakes this year" you probably have not uttered the same about frogs (other than hearing the spring peeper evening chorus). Some snakes find the frog menu too enticing to pass up.

Although I never try to eradicate snakes from my garden, I often place toad houses in the garden to invite the welcome frog and toad reptiles, but I have seen snakes sub-letting the space. The houses are not elaborate. And I seldom need to place a tiny "for rent" sign on them.

Noises in the attic
My son's room is on a separate side of the house. Because he is away from home for eight months at a time, I do not go in there other than to freshen up the place when his arrival is imminent and to wash the bedclothes when he is leaving for his yearly travels abroad. It seems that before he left last year he set a "have-a-heart trap" in his room. He found telltale signs of a rodent having been there while he was away the year before...You would think that this might be a good thing to tell a mother - rodents or a trap in the bedroom. The news is better than I expected it would be: nothing was caught in the trap for the entire eight months he was away, whew! However, Sonny did catch two red squirrels over the last five weeks. Just as I tuned in to listen for little rattling noises coming from his room, I was fortunate to capture a red squirrel this week. Regardless of who discovers the body, I am the only one in the house not afraid to empty the trap. I walk the trap and contents to the field and the next day the turkey vultures have found the deposit and away they go.

So what's the news about all this?
Particularly because of the recently noted decline in the area's bat population, more spiders, frogs, and toads are good because of the numbers of pests they consume, especially flies and mosquitoes. We need to adjust and to accept all of the wiggly and squiggly insect eaters we can find.

Mary Houle is a master gardener, master composter, certified Square Foot Gardener instructor, and SOUL graduate. Houle completed the UVM master gardener training 10 years ago and recently completed the UVM Extension Master Gardener certification process again. Additionally, she completed a six-hour training program and exam to qualify as a First Detector related to plant health issues.