A wedding and 400 funerals

So, yeah, we're all about learning at this house (Well, sometimes anyway) and when the boys found an enormous black widow in our garage this summer, they asked if they could keep her.

I agreed that we could keep her for a day or two so they could watch her, and then she was going away. Most spiders get relocated outdoors around here, and Black Widows usually get taken up the canyon somewhere.

Anyway, she just kinda stuck around, and eventually we even bought her a spacious little bug habitat so she wouldn't feel cramped. We have had her for about four months now and we are silly, running to to the pet store every two weeks for a cricket for her, so she's not hungry. (We are also all about spidertarianism...think humanitarianism) Don't want the poor lass going hungry now do we?

Anyway, my dad, comforting gent that he is dropped a little hint that he had heard somewhere that Black Widows can spontaneously reproduce. I looked it up and it's completely untrue, but I stopped looking as soon as I found that and figured we were safe.

NOT! Did some more research today and found that Black Widows, once they have mated, can wait up to a year to lay their eggs, because being able to wait for a steady food source is important to the survival of their young.

Unfortunately the food supply around here was a little TOO steady.

Yep, you guessed it.

Unfortunately poor Charlotte went on to her great reward roughly 30 minutes ago, followed immediately thereafter by 250 or so of her closest relatives!

The boys are disappointed that we couldn't take her up the canyon like we had planned, but...her home had air vents, I just couldn't take a chance with a poisonous spider infestation.

And ever since I spied the little darlings I have had the sensation of something creeping up my arm, or down my leg, or through my hair....