Spider Scare

Our yard was in desperate need of a makeover. The grass needed cut, the hedges needed a good trim and the edges needed edged. The problem was that I had left the kiddie pool in the yard and forgot to close the lid on the sandbox, so everything was full of water from the storms we have had.
Yesterday, I decided I would go out and empty out the pool and clean up the sandbox. I figured if I got it all cleaned up, they grass would dry up enough so that Paul could cut the grass when he got home. I hate outside work because I can not stand bugs...and NC has some bugs. So did WV...I was once trapped in my Mom's basement by a spider. True story!

Cooper helped me remove all the wet sand from the sandbox and we then we moved it over to the edge of the yard so that we could rinse it out completely. Before lifting it, I checked underneath to make sure there were no creepy crawlies. I have a major fear of spiders but no spiders were in sight...just some spider webs with nothing in them.  I held it up while he sprayed it but since you should never trust your 5 year old with the hose, I switched places with him.

Cooper: When you're done, can I hose off these spider webs on the back?
Me: Sure
Cooper: Mom?
Me: Yeah?
Cooper: There's a spider.
Me: Oh yeah? (slightly panicked...but trying to not let him smell my fear)
Cooper: Yeah, it's coming up the back.
Me: Where? (pulling the sand box towards me and trying to see it) Ohhhh.Myyyy.Godddd! Get in the house. Get in the house.

I made sure that Cooper was in the house and then went back out to confirm what I thought I had seen. Yep, I was right...it was a Black Widow. It was crawling back into a hole in the bottom of the sandbox where it also had an egg sac and a beetle to munch on. Ewww.

I asked Paul to call me so that I could tell him our dilemma. After going into all the detail, he informs me that I am probably wrong. Apparently other spiders are commonly mistaken for Black Widows. Well, I am legally blind, so I went out to take a picture of it to prove it to him.

I had the camera on zoom and had no clue what I was taking a picture of since I was standing so far away from it.  When I came back in to look at the photo, I definitely knew I was right.

Paul came home and killed it with a long stick. To ensure ultimate death, I poured Clorox in the hole before he removed the stick. I didn't need it or it's babies to escape. It's all I could think of last night and I couldn't fall asleep forever.

The exterminator came today and there will no longer be a sandbox to play in. Actually we may never play in the backyard again.