Mary has made it home from her trip so now I can post our photo. She visited me and her husband went out to the county fair and had a good time. You can check out her blog and see her story. I knew she was making a Dear Jane quilt with batiks so I let her go through my pile of small pieces and we cut off a chunk of each that she liked. We had a great time talking 'quilt'.
She brought me some real Texas goodies. The Texas Wildflower Honey is really good and is different from our local honey. There is a tote bag in the bottom of the basket and a pincushion on top. I need to take a better photo of that and post it later.
Yesterday afternoon I was carrying the pots of hostas from the front of my house to the side where I had my wheelbarrow. I felt a spider web brush the side of my face as I set this one down. It's a good thing I didn't see the spider while I was carrying it or I would have dropped it and screamed.
When I was a little kid on the farm we used to see this kind of spider in the corn fields. Once I saw one I never went back to the field again that year. Then I would forget about them over the winter until I saw the first one again the next year. His zig zag part of the web is over to the right in front of a leaf. I took the plant over to a bush with a protruding branch and scraped him off the plant and onto the branch. It sat in the same spot on the branch for the longest time, probably in shock! About an hour later it had disappeared.
My job yesterday afternoon was to clear an area that is in the shade and plant all of these potted hostas. They are the ones I dug up early this spring from the area that was going to be in the sun this year. I fit 15 of them into the spot that I cleared of volunteer trees and bushes, weeds and violets. I still have 4 left to plant. I gave away the ones beyond the front of the wheelbarrow to my neighbor. She came to get some peony roots and I sent her home with 4 hostas to plant under a pine tree in addition to the peonies.
Today is a day off the hard work and I'm having lunch with a friend. I hope I won't be too stiff to get up after eating. I'm not used to 3 hours of digging.
So good to have people who share your quilt passion to talk to. -- Oh, that spider! I know they are useful, but my poor dh is a phobic and I am a Buddhist with a vow not to kill. So I have constructed a spider trap which works well and doesn't harm them and I can set them free. Good to have a garden, we don't.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on the spider Wanda. I would have screamed and dropped the plant had I seen it too.
ReplyDeleteThat is a big spider! I would have screamed too.
ReplyDeleteWas beautiful day to be outside. We live in the middle of a corn field and I can appreciate your dislike for spiders. We get like 3 dozen of then around the outside of the house and garage each year. They do have a purpose in the food chain though. Having company that likes the same things you do is a fun way to have a visit. Chris
ReplyDeleteI'm usually pretty good with anything that has legs, but even I would have screamed and dropped the plant, pot and everything if I had seen that bad boy! YIKES!
ReplyDeleteI know that spiders are "good"--but I "drop, run & scream", too. Your garden sounds quite a handful; I would be bent over for days after all that work....Julierose
ReplyDeleteso many of us hate spiders - me included - dh and I got talking about it one day and wonder if it is from watching too many old Tarzan movies that were made in the 30's - 50's where they always had giant spiders chasing people through the jungle? I hate them!
ReplyDeleteGlad you had another good visit with friends.
I think that's the writing spider - like the one from Charlotte's Web. I've never seen one inside my home so I live and let live. Definitly don't wanna touch it though - LOL!
ReplyDelete.....but.....he is such a pretty spider. There seem to be so many spiders this year. I wonder if that is suppose to say something about what the winter is going to be like.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you had a nice visit with Mary.
Enjoy your non heavy labor day!
I had that same type ugly spider in my garden this summer. When I looked it up, I learned he's perfectly harmless, and goes by some ridiculous name like black & yellow orb spider.
ReplyDeleteYour Texas friend looks like she is very nice, and the gift of Texas treats looks so special.
ReplyDeleteYour garden fall clean up is indeed a lot of body aching work. Hope you recouped today having lunch with your friend.
AND that spider ! ! ! I sure remember those things growing up back east also and they always scared the puddin' out of me. We do not have them out here... but we do have "Hobo's" and Brown Recluse that are really nasty.
J~MT
That spider would have had me screaming and dropping things too!
ReplyDeleteJust another lazy day, huh, Wanda? LOL I haven't seen any of those spiders yet this year. They do a good job of catching mosquitos, so I leave them alone as much as I can. But I still don't like running into one in the dark!
ReplyDeleteTalk about SHOCK, I don't know how you had the wherewithal to photograph that spider after your close encounter with it!
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