Arachnophobia?

Ok, so there are some cool things about Minnesota, but what I find truly relaxing about the land of ten thousand lakes is the LACK of certain things. We're talking no scorpions, no tarantulas, no lizards, no alligators, no malaria-carrying mosquitoes, no hissing scorpions, no cobras, no pythons, no jellyfish or portuguese man-o-war. There are two types of venomous snakes which are isolated to the southeastern counties, and basically one, possibly two, potentially lethal spiders. The Northern Widow is a relative of the black widow, but I've never come across one. I've been told they like to hang out on the underside of the toilet seat in outhouses - which is why I never actually park my butt on the potty when I'm at my dad's cabin. Reports of the brown recluse are spotty, and I think some people have yet to figure out if they really exist up here or if they're just tag alongs that come in by chance.

This is why dear friends, when I spotted this little lady making a home among my sedums this past Monday, I gave myself only a minute to freak out. Angie talking in her head: there are only two poisonous spiders in Minnesota. There are only two poisonous spiders in Minnesota. There are only two poisonous spiders in Minnesota. Three repeats of this and I was confident enough to step closer and say, "ah, ain't she pretty?" And she is pretty. Still pretty freaky, considering that body is the size of my thumbnail, but pretty. I immediately dragged my nine year old son outside so he could see. "Now don't freak out," I told him. He saw it and backed two feet away. "Let's kill it," he said. "No, we're not going to kill it," I replied. "It's not going to hurt us. Isn't it pretty?" I was so proud of myself, me, the biologist mom showing her son how to be appreciative of nature's wonders and all. Then I let him go back in the house and proceeded with my gardening - steering clear of the sedums myself, of course.

Later, I asked my husband if Ethan told him about the spider. Our conversation:

Hubby: "Did you kill it?"

Me: "No, I didn't kill it."

Hubby: "Why not? There's some bug spray in the garage."

Me: "That stuff never works, it just chokes the insect and makes it mad."

Hubby: "But you should kill it. What if it gets in the house? It's going to turn cold soon, you know. It'll come into the house."

Me: "I've never seen a spider like that in the house. I think it's a garden spider."

Hubby: "But you don't know, do you? It could be poisonous. It could bite one of the kids."

Me: "The only poisonous spiders in Minnesota are black widows."

Hubby: "But you don't know for sure, do you?"

Me: rolls eyes.

Commence project identify an arachnid - otherwise known as proving the paranoid husband wrong. As a side note: I'm not sure why my husband is always the one to worry about the kids getting hurt. He panics about everything - falling tree branches, riding bikes, rollerblading, he won't even consider getting the boys a bunk bed. I'm the one to say, "eh, they're kids. Let 'em live a little." Weird huh, considering I'm the one with all the estrogen?

Anyway, it didn't take long before I figured out exactly what kind of spider I was dealing with. The bright yellow body and the way she sat upside down were good clues, but more telling was the zigzagging webbing pattern. My little gal is a common black and yellow garden spider, also known as an argiope. They show up in the fall and tend to die soon before or after the first freeze *sticks tongue out at hubby*. They're non-threatening to humans and are really good for the garden - though after all the mosquito bites I got on Monday she wasn't doing her job that well.

The point to all this? Well, there isn't one, except that was the most exciting thing to my weekend. I became a field biologist and identified a spider. My question to you, dear friends, what is the most frightening insect/snake/lizard/animal you've come across in the wild? And stay tuned tomorrow, I shall post a review about a book with a slightly more frightening setting - the Australian desert.