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Last night my husband comes home with a female Wolf Spider, who had all her babies on her back. It was uncomfortably fascinating! Our family gathered round a glass jar to witness this rare opportunity. I surprised myself by getting my camera out to take pictures. I thought I must be crazy, not only to let this normally freaky spider into my home, but I am now taking pictures of it with the lid off! The spirit of Halloween must be present in our home.

Shortly there after, we heard my husband yell from his office, “The tarantula’s are mating!” Before I go on, let me fill you in, we have a pest control company and over the past few weeks some people have found tarantulas near their homes. Rather than kill the big nasty spiders, my husband kindly brought them home and put them in a tank in his office. So back to the story, the kids and I come running to see the tarantulas mating! It crosses my mind that my kids don’t know what mating means. As we come to the tank and see one tarantula on top of the other one, Sydney says, “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” My husband and I look at each other realizing we did not want to have this discussion yet and just turn our heads and look at the spiders and act like we didn’t hear the comment. Then she says, “Does this mean they are getting married?” I quickly responded, “Yes, they just got married.” So as we watch this amazing force of nature take place, I run get my camera to catch the action. My husband held the lid open to the tank as I nervously took pictures. He then quietly says, “What is that in the corner of the cage?” I look thinking something was going to jump on me. He says, “Is that a leg?” I sadly agreed. He then slowly puts the lid down, turns out the light and walks away. Here he just had his whole family come to witness the miracle of life when in reality it was the end of one poor tarantula’s life. The sad truth was, they were not mating, one was in fact sucking the life out of the other.

This morning I went in the room to see what was going on and all that is left of one of the spiders is eight black hairy legs. And next to those legs is one very fat active spider. I never thought I would be the type of person who would have compassion for a creepy spider, but today I do.

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