# curing arachnophobia??



## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

OK so I was a serious arachnophobe. Couldn't even look at pics in books without being afraid of touching the page! Worked hard on myself to get over the worst of it so I didn't share the phobia with my kids. My youngest daughter wants to be an arachnologist, so I think that worked!

But after her showing me youtubes of Lucas The Spider - SOOO cute!! And seeing the peacock jumping spider - first pic here, I then found a website on South African jumping spiders - OH MY GOD!!! Some are yuck, but so many are just gooorgeous! Sure to help get anyone over a spider phobia! The link is Jumping Spiders - Homepage & there are a couple of 'taster' pics below...


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Why would one want to cure such a sensible phobia? 

I used to be very afraid of spiders. Now I'm only afraid of poisonous spiders. Or spiders who are larger than I. The latter only happens in dreams after eating certain foods.

I agree Lucas is cute.


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## ApuetsoT (Aug 22, 2014)

I was going to say... You live in Aus. It's not a phobia if it's reasonable!


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Those are kind of cute. I used to be terrified of spiders. It goes back to when I was about 2, and had a very bad fever. My mother tells me that when she would try to hold me, I'd scream that there were bugs all over her. I would wake up in the night as a teen, and be convinced my bed was full of spiders. It would take me a few minutes to get over it.

It got cured when I became a parent too. My kids didn't like spiders, and the last thing I wanted to do was transmit my fear to them, so I just pretended that it was no big deal and forced myself to kill spiders or put them outside whenever my kids saw one in the house. Eventually, I started to get over it. They don't much bother me now, though I wouldn't say not at all, but it's not a phobia. But of course there are no deadly spiders here, or very, very few.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@ApuetsoT, arachnophobia is unreasonable in Australia. There have been no confirmed deaths from spider bites in Australia since 1979, while falling out of bed killed 523 people between 2007 and 2016.

This hails from an interesting little piece on fear versus risk from our ABC here:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-18/how-your-worst-fears-stack-up-against-reality/9277098

If you do pick three things off the list that you think are dangerous, it will tell you how they compare to the actual death statistics for a recent decade in Australia. Will you pick the right three? Then you can compare how the creepie-crawlies go in those statistics.


inkunicorn:



Gorgeous photos, @loosie, and well done! 


We don't have too many spider stories - there's lots of spiders around and we photograph them sometimes, but they're generally not very interactive with humans.

The few that pop into my mind mostly involve huntsman spiders:










That's an example, but our West Australian ones are really hairy and about the diameter of a large mug. They aren't dangerous to humans but will bite to defend themselves if attacked.

I came to Australia from Europe at age 11, and there aren't any big hairy spiders like that in the part of Europe I grew up in. I wasn't aware of their existence in Australia either in the first couple of months, but then... Well, my father had bought a largely uncleared farming block and had this brilliant idea that we were all going to clear the land using axes and elbow grease. He organised four axes for the family members and handed them out to us with various exhortations. This phase was an unpopular phase and didn't last long; our neighbours had a good laugh and before too long he bought a tractor.

Anyway, it was during this axe-clearing phase that I was chopping down some prickly undergrowth near a large eucalyptus tree with really gnarly bark - a favourite huntsman habitat, as I was to find out. As I was chopping away, wearing shorts because of the summer heat, I suddenly felt something tickling my knee and looked down - and next thing I jumped about a mile high, because one of those saucer-sized hairy things was running rapidly upwards on my leg. On coming back to Earth, I launched myself straight into a hysterical sort of anti-spider dance, until I was rid of the beastie.

They're not dangerous, but they do tend to put the wind up people when making sudden appearances, especially on your bare legs. Many years later, a colleague at coffee-break recounted driving her car to work on the Perth-Bunbury Highway and having the same sort of thing happen to her: Dressed in shorts because of the summer heat, tickling sensation on leg, had a look and - eeeek! She told us how almost in a trance she calmly and safely pulled over onto the verge, came to a stop, exited her car and then, and only then, rapidly jumped up and down yowling and flapping at herself until she was rid of the beastie.

As a university student I once had a pet huntsman, because I felt the need to behave like a sensible biologist would behave and see these creatures through a bigger lens than mere cultural arachnophobia. The spider just turned up in my room, and I didn't chuck it out. Far from it, I bid it welcome, named it Freddy and saw to it that it had plenty to eat despite being indoors. My laboratory dissection kit had a lovely long probe with a nice handle which was excellent for catching flies and presenting them live as sort of wiggly shishkebabs to dear Freddy. When I had one, I located Freddy and brought the wiggly fly within about an inch of the spider's head. I always had to hold my breath and get really mentally focused so I wouldn't drop the probe when Freddy did his sudden and very spectacular pounce upon the fly.

And so Freddy and I had a happy association lasting many months. I'm sure you're interested in how it ended. Well, one morning I woke up to the sight of Freddy on the ceiling right above my bed, and initially I just marvelled at the amazing ability spiders have to cling to the undersides of relatively smooth surfaces. Their legs have a few helpful structures for these sorts of acrobatics and it's all terribly admirable. But then I asked myself the question: Do they ever make a mistake and fall off? And since none of us are infallible, spiders included, I caught Freddy by means of a carefully placed huge glass pickle jar and piece of cardboard to slide between the spider and the ceiling once I had him surrounded. I then carried him in his jar out to the garden and re-united him with the great outdoors, in which he was free to find his own prey and perhaps a lady spider. With any luck, Freddy's descendants are still out there. 


You might be interested in a few more things I dug up for an article... 


Miturgidae Prowling by Jean and Fred, on Flickr

"The speed of various Australian Huntsman spiders was recently measured, and found to range from an impressive 40+ body lengths per second for a species from Queensland, to a respectable 15 body lengths per second for the slowest species tested. Many of them can also jump very well. No wonder people feel their hearts in their throats when one of these big spiders suddenly appears at top speed."​ 
"Spiders, like sharks, are far more frequently harmed, and even eaten, by humans, than the other way around. There have been no confirmed deaths from spider bites in Australia since 1979. Also, few of us personally know anyone who has been attacked by a shark, but virtually all of us have eaten shark in the form of fish and chips. Spiders were firmly on the edibles list of nomadic hunter-gatherers throughout the world, and in South America and Cambodia, deep-fried tarantulas are still eaten as a delicacy. And why not, considering that spiders are closely related to lobsters, and few Westerners would think twice about tucking into those. Deep-fried tarantula fans describe these beasties as wonderfully crunchy on the outside and delightfully chewy on the inside; a texture contrast us ordinary folk enjoy in potato croquettes or falafels.​ ​ While researching this topic, I came upon a delightful story from the 18th Century. French astronomer de Lalande used to visit the naturalist d'Isjonville each Saturday, and there, to eat such spiders and caterpillars as he could find in the garden. Eager to be a good host, Madame d'Isjonville began to collect them beforehand so she could serve them to him on his arrival. Monsieur de Lalande, like many other spider-eating enthusiasts, reported that spiders taste of hazelnuts."​ ​ That 18th Century story came from an old zoology encyclopaedia. Doesn't that little snippet just make you want to write a novel based on de Lalande and the d'Isjonvilles? Madame d'Isjonville especially seems like a really fun character! :Angel:


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

I tend to just let spiders go about their business. I'm not afraid of spiders, but you couldn't tell that from my reaction when one lands on my neck and starts toward my collar.


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

I never get rid of cobwebs in the barn except for the ones above doorways and other places where you can run into them. I've seen enormous horseflies be eaten by even more enormous spiders. The spiders can stay. They don't hurt people and they keep the bugs away.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

ApuetsoT said:


> I was going to say... You live in Aus. It's not a phobia if it's reasonable!


True, we have funnelwebs & redbacks, but for the most part, our spiders are pretty harmless. And I was just as afraid of Daddy Longlegs & huntsmans as the few poisonous ones... come to think of it, I remember one xmas morning as a kid, when I was trapped in my bedroom, unable to go see what Santa brought me because there was a small Huntsman on my door! And how sensible is it to be terrified to touch the page of a book because of a PICTURE of a spider?? Tell me that?? :lol:


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

SueC said:


> a colleague at coffee-break recounted driving her car to work on the Perth-Bunbury Highway and having the same sort of thing happen to her:


You see, my 'rational phobia' would probably have had me jump out of the plurry car while I was driving along! Which reminds me of a funny story - my Chinese neighbour was so terrified, he actually did that - luckily was in a parking lot going very slow, so neither he or the car were badly injured! And then next time he was at traffic lights & a huntsman ran across his dash, he remembered the injuries & stole himself to quickly grab the spider & fling it out his open window... only to hear a scream - he'd thrown it into the open window of the next car, onto a woman's lap!

Thankfully the only time I've got in the car, put my visor down & had a huntsman on it, I had my 3 & 4yo kids in the car - I shot out, got them out & stole myself to deal with it... but before I could, my eldest had found a plastic cup in the car, jumped in & put it over the spider & said 'quick mum, get me a piece of paper to put under him!'

When my daughter had a 'pet' huntsman for a while, I actually touched him(for a split second at a time) occasionally... felt extremely brave!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

SueC said:


> But then I asked myself the question: Do they ever make a mistake and fall off?


Bleh, yes they do! Years ago(when I was very phobic), camping (in Pemberton, WA actually) I was woken by a strange sound near my head. Sort of a scrape, scrape, scrape on the canvas then a plop. Then scrape, scrape again. Turned on the torch & it was the biggest huntsman I'd ever seen(well, maybe at such close quarters), climbing up the tent wall right near my head, only to drag it's big A body up so far until it fell off with a plop! Bleh!! I shot out of that tent so quickly & altho my husband got rid of it, I spent the rest of that night in the car & ensured the bed wasn't close to the tent walls after that!


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## pasomountain (Dec 19, 2018)

I should be an arachnophobe since I've been bitten 4 times! Don't know what kind of spider it was but the bite is different from other bug bites. They swell up big and feel hot to the touch. It itches a little and is painful. And the bites I had by my knee and by my elbow made the joints felt really stiff. I hate going to the doctor so I never got treated but they all healed eventually.

This also creeped me out--I had gone on a back woods trail ride and everything was fine til I got home. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when a spider dropped down out of my hair and into the sink. So it had been up there on my head for God knows how long and I never felt anything!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Haha Paso! I once found a redback(like your Black Widow) in my undies drawer - let me tell you, I sprayed about 3 cans of surface spray all over my knickers & was still worried to put new ones on each day!

But your spider in the hair story reminds me of the first time I went scuba diving... came back on board & felt a funny feeling in my ear, heard squeaking... Thought it was water in my ear, tried rubbing, hitting my ear... it would sometimes get better & then worse. Weird. Then another diver said 'whats that on your cheek?' & picked off a teensy tiny crab!!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Oh oh! And hows this for reasonable... Riding through the bush at one place I used to live, there were heaps of little... bird poo spiders(can't recall real name - jewel maybe) on webs across the track - whoever went first would ride waving a stick in front of them. One day I was in a dream, moseying along the trail, when in my peripheral vision, saw something on my hand & panicked, flailing at my hand, frightened my horse & nearly fell off... only to find I was flailing at a bandaid I'd put on a cut that morning!


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## pasomountain (Dec 19, 2018)

LOL!!!!!!! Phobia's make us do funny things don't they??! I am actually more phobic about the chemicals in bug spray than the bugs themselves--I mean they have warning labels on it, right??  

That band aid bit is hilarious. Any lead rider is going to get webbed here too--part of the deal I guess!


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

I admit I don't like spiders...I once lived in an old house in Florida that was surrounded by large shade oak trees. Going outside meant walking face first into banana spider webs, not my cup of tea. But the worst, worst part was this old House seemed to have a welcome sign out for what I called wolf spiders. Big as your hand! They were so big you could hear them crawling around. More than once while sleeping, I awoke to the sound of a plop on my bed by my head.....from a spider dropping from the ceiling. Umm NO, just NO!

And the female wolf spiders carry these huge egg sacks on their stomachs, so if you startle them or try to swat them, they release THOUSANDS of baby spiders, that crawl everywhere. NOPE. I learned to use a can of wasp spray that shoots a stream, to drop those suckers! My daughter, the evil one, used to laugh and try to physically stop me from sending them to spider heaven. Snakes don't bother me, spiders are a nope. 

12 years ago, I was bitten by a brown recluse while working on my well pump. Didn't know it until several days later. The bite was underneath my left (*ahem*) bosom, I remember while at work feeling some pain in the area. Later that night I went and looked in the bathroom mirror and found a golfball sized purple-ish black lump! Knew what it was, and by the next morning was running a fever and sick. Went to the Dr, who explained how fortunate I was to find it when I did because he'd had to surgically remove LOTS of necrotic flesh from brown recluse bites. IE: I could have lost my boob. He grabbed a 8 inch long wooden q tip and proceeded with, what seemed to me great pleasure, in cleaning out the bite wound while I screamed in pain and tried not to slap the snot out of him. Had to go on mega antibiotics for 10 days, get the wound repacked. To this day you can still see the fang marks where I got bit, and it's still sore. 
These days, the only problem I have with spiders is hobo spiders who invade my barn every summer. They spin webs across the aisle way every day, so I end up face planting in their webs a time or two. Now I keep a long stick just inside my barn and have to knock down the webs before entering. And I nail em with my fly spray that I use on my horses. 

I've seen some pictures of beautiful spiders, there's one that is a solid iridescent blue, gorgeous! But pictures is as close as I want to get, lol.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

I'm okay if they're in the sheds, stables, garden or most rooms of the house. I ignore or move them with a glass and on a few occasions I've picked up the large ones and thrown them out of the door. Our spiders aren't as dangerous as other countries though and i do have to suppress a full body shudder and a Yuck! 

I've zero tolerance for those unfortunate enough to wander into my bedroom at night. I guess it's the place where we're most vulnerable and the thought of one on the loose while I'm sleeping gives me the creeps. 

Daddy Longlegs are the worst, i hate the way they move on skinny legs. We don't have many in Scotland and my first experience was a few years ago, when i woke to one moving across my bedroom wall: it didn't survive. My family told me that these spiders like to hang out in clusters that sit in huge dark writhing masses in corners of houses :shock::shock:. I slept with the light on for two nights.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

loosie said:


> And how sensible is it to be terrified to touch the page of a book because of a PICTURE of a spider?? Tell me that?? :lol:


My Dad was a pretty tough cop. Dealt with some really dangerous people.

But when we had a subscription to National Geographic, if he turned a page and there were photos of snakes? The magazine went flying into the air and he yelled like he'd been struck. 
:smile:


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Just thought you'd like to know the child I have to contend(keep up) with...

When other little girls get facepaint of fairies & butterflies, she gets a redback spider - oh & when other girls go to bed with fluffy toys, what she's holding is her bedtime buddy - a fake black headed python.

For her birthday one year I was instructed to make jelly spiders for dessert!

The huge spider in front of her face... IS huge - Jess was only about 6" behind the web. She is a Golden Orb that we met in the Territory and she was about 8" leg span, body about 2" long. And that's her tiny little mate on her back!

Then we went on a boat trip Nth of Broome, far north WA, where they hand fed sharks that came up to the boat for... ahem, bait! (Lemon Sharks)

And the last is one of her current pets she plans to breed soon, a Bredlii Python named(for any Harry Potter fans) Nagini. She also aspires to be a herpetologist.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

Back when we lived in a big suburban house in Virginia, we had what I considered a cool little micro ecosystem in our basement. We had wolf spiders, non web spinning solitary hunters, and camel crickets, pale, spindly legged little ******s down there. The basement would get over run by the crickets, and the spiders hunted them. When the spiders ate all the crickets, they would prey on each other. When the spider population decreased, the crickets would rebound. Then there would be another hatch of wolf spiders. 


Every now and then, I would hear a blood curdling scream from down there. That always meant that the goodewyfe or our son had found the BIG MOMMA SPIDER with her egg sac. 


Eventually the goodewyfe got tired of it and called the exterminator.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Haha boots, when Jess got the pythons last year, I sent a photo of her holding one to our neighbour. Didn't hear back from her straight away, but the next day when her 15yo son arrived for a lift to school, he said he was in his room when he heard is mother scream & a crash & he rushed out to find her sitting on the couch looking shocked... she'd looked at the picture, screamed & flung the phone across the room!


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## Dez4455 (Mar 14, 2019)

Nope, no cure... just run... move outta your house... leave everything behind... just run!! LOL!! When I'm in the barn brushing, feeding, or cleaning and I see a spider, I drop everything and RUN! I can't stand spiders, not even magazine pictures, youtube videos, or online pics. They always make me cringe!! Even the word SPIDER makes my skin crawl!


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I've got a healthy respect for spiders that might be poisonous and I wouldn't want a pet one but I can cope with them using a 'mind over matter' way of thinking - frogs and toads however - no!


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

As I said earlier, snakes, no problem. Found this rat snake this am next to my house. 
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vfDwzeaFbRA1LUDD6


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

HombresArablegacy said:


> As I said earlier, snakes, no problem. Found this rat snake this am next to my house.
> https://photos.app.goo.gl/vfDwzeaFbRA1LUDD6



Wow it looks huge. I think i'd rather deal with your snakes than your spiders! 

I've never had a problem with snakes and I was happy to handle them when i was at school. I've more chance of winning the lottery than meeting one of ours wild ones though.


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Caledonian said:


> Wow it looks huge. I think i'd rather deal with your snakes than your spiders!
> 
> I've never had a problem with snakes and I was happy to handle them when i was at school. I've more chance of winning the lottery than meeting one of ours wild ones though.


Its young, only about 2 feet long. I've got a "regular" who shows up every spring. He/she is about 5 feet long....as of last year.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

HombresArablegacy said:


> Its young, only about 2 feet long. I've got a "regular" who shows up every spring. He/she is about 5 feet long....as of last year.



2 feet long is big, 5 feet (plus a years growth) :shock:. I'd like to see it though ... from a distance. :smile:


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Its completely harmless, eats mice, and keeps the poisonous copperhead snakes away. I'll post a pic from this year, when it shows up....usually in May. 😎😎😎


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I came in from school one day and heard my mother call out, "Fred, is that you?"

"No, it's me."

"Thank heavens for that come help me!"

There was mother standing on the toilet, her pants around her knees staring at a spider who was staring back at her. 

Mum had been there for over an hour!


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Caledonian said:


> 2 feet long is big, 5 feet (plus a years growth) :shock:. I'd like to see it though ... from a distance. :smile:


Here's a better picture of my big buddy.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

HombresArablegacy said:


> Here's a better picture of my big buddy.



He's got a wonderful shine and colour. If he keeps the vermin down and the dangerous snakes away, he'd be more than welcome.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

loosie said:


> Haha Paso! I once found a redback(like your Black Widow) in my undies drawer - let me tell you, I sprayed about 3 cans of surface spray all over my knickers & was still worried to put new ones on each day!


mg: @loosie, think of all the pesticides you absorbed through your skin after that... especially the sort of skin you carry in your underwear...

It's sort of ironic that humans will poison themselves trying to poison other things, and that the poison is often more harmful than the thing it's supposed to poison...

Loving all your anecdotes!  And wasn't your littlie showing resourcefulness and initiative, dealing with the spider for you! inkunicorn: I've got to say, I like the way you've gone about dealing with your phobia - excellent! :clap:


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## Captain Evil (Apr 18, 2012)

I have a lot of fears I guess, like snakes and spiders, but only a few actual phobias... and I think phobias are weird, weird things. 

Two phobias that I can manage pretty well, and can probably be downgraded at this point to mere concerns, are Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and Ghengis Khan. The Ghengis Khan phobia, unfortunately, became a little generalized to include Mongolia. One phobia, diving, crops up at weird times and remains a huge challenge.

I realized that I had to deal with the Ghengis Khan thing about four years ago when I was checking people onto the boat, and a very polite and lovely gentleman stepped up. all of a sudden, my whole world except for him went black and white, and I started shaking and sweating. Luckily for me, he chose to sit in the back row, so I got through the trip okay, by mostly focusing on the kids (as is my job) and really preparing myself before going to the back of the boat with sea creatures. 

I looked up his name after the trip, and sure enough, a Mongolian name. But he was so sweet and nice, that, I swear, he took the edge right off of that phobia.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Dez4455 said:


> Nope, no cure... just run... move outta your house... leave everything behind... just run!!


Haha! I recall a recent news report of someone doing just that when she found a snake in her house - the snake was removed, but she just wouldn't set foot in the house again - ended up getting people to go remove her belongings & sold the house! Well even you Dez could probably hack Lucas the Spider - just praps put your laptop on the coffee table & step away as you press play, so you don't inadvertently break it if it is too much! 

And Jaydee, what's wrong with cute froggies & toadies?? Although big Cane Toads are pretty disgusting, but not scary... except for our poor wildlife. (You know @SueC they've been found in the Hunter Valley now??! Should be a bounty on them!) I don't get mouse or cockroach phobias either personally. My MIL is so terrified of birds that she can't even stand a feather being in close range...

& @Hombres, that first snake does look huge! Must be very small trees! Are rat snakes a kind of python or venomous? My daughter wants venomous ones too, but I draw the line at them in my house - enough of them outside! 

I'm not scared of snakes at all, but my eldest was bitten this summer by an Eastern Brown at the chook pen(luckily dry bite because they're very poisonous, but still an ambulance trip & night in hospital just in case), that she didn't even see - luckily felt what she thought was a scratch on her foot & saw the marks immediately... because while compression bandages are reliable first aid for Aussie snakes, Browns still kill more than a few people yearly, because they have such tiny teeth & people don't realise they've even been bitten until they keel over!! And I'm really worried about my dogs - especially one with terrier instincts - she recently killed a Red Belly Black(also very poisonous) & couldn't be called off until it was dead - she had bite marks on her chest, but lucky must have also been a dry bite, and she attacked a Brown in the garage in front of my husband, lucky the brown was half way through swallowing a rat, so he could pull her away & it wasn't able to bite her!

And yes @SueC, I am horrified with the thought of how much toxic crap my skin would have absorbed. & this is from someone who hates the thought of using Bushmans repellant... generally - we did find the mozzies & sandflies so bad that we used it when up nth after the wet tho. Until I was able to find some Neem spray...


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

What I like about Australia is that even the plants are trying to kill you. This strikes me as something you should be afraid of:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/if-you-touch-this-plant-it-will-make-you-vomit-in-pure-1693770289


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Haha! I've heard of that one, but I laughed at the 'using it as toilet paper has caused people to shoot themselves' - who the hell would be stupid enough if it's so painful just to brush against??


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## Dez4455 (Mar 14, 2019)

loosie said:


> Haha! I recall a recent news report of someone doing just that when she found a snake in her house - the snake was removed, but she just wouldn't set foot in the house again - ended up getting people to go remove her belongings & sold the house! Well even you Dez could probably hack Lucas the Spider - just praps put your laptop on the coffee table & step away as you press play, so you don't inadvertently break it if it is too much!
> 
> And Jaydee, what's wrong with cute froggies & toadies?? Although big Cane Toads are pretty disgusting, but not scary... except for our poor wildlife. (You know @SueC they've been found in the Hunter Valley now??! Should be a bounty on them!) I don't get mouse or cockroach phobias either personally. My MIL is so terrified of birds that she can't even stand a feather being in close range...
> 
> ...


I LOVE Lucas the Spider, ADORABLE! But real spiders, mmm noooo ma'am! Snakes on the other hand, I absolutely adore! I found nice 4 ft snake (didn't really bother trying to figure out what it was which was dumb now that I think about it LOL) that was slithering inside of my horses paddock. Horses were bucking, kicking and rearing so I let them out. I just sat down and it crawled right over my legs. Absolutely stunning. She/He was a beautiful black that just glistened in the sun! I wish they came around more to eat these blessed mice!!


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## MissLulu (Feb 3, 2019)

When I was a child my half sister and I would visit Dad on the weekends. For Christmas we got a subscription to National Geographic kids books so every once in a while a book would arrive and we loved getting to read through a new book. One time we got a book about spiders. I think my sister was five and I was ten. I was terrified of spiders and tried to look at the book but only got through a few pages before I thought I was going to vomit from fear. I took the book and shoved it under a dresser that my dad kept in our basement playroom to hold our toys. It stayed there for a couple of decades until my sister helped Dad move and she found the book and saved it for me (I had moved out of state). Thankfully, I got over my fear of spiders and the book sits on my bookcase.


I grew up and spent most of my life in Oregon and Washington. I didn't see a Black Widow until I was 30 years old. My daughter was at the fair doing a craft demonstration and a maintenance worker had found a Black Widow and put it in a jar and was showing it to the children. A few years later we moved to Nevada and in the first few weeks I saw so many I lost count.


A few years ago when my Border Collie was a puppy I was playing fetch with her in the backyard when the ball landed and only two feet away was a Tarantula. Worried that she would kill the spider I yelled, "Get the ball, get the ball!" and then put her in the house and told my daughter not to let her out but to come out to see the spider. 

Photo of spider with tennis ball for size. The spider calmly wandered out of our yard and into the neighbor's yard. I guess he was on a mission?


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

My favorite song about a spider. The character singing it is a lot of fun. Interesting fellow.


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## MissLulu (Feb 3, 2019)

My mom sent me this last Christmas. I watched it more times then I want to admit.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

All this talk reminds me of another phobia I only got over because of my kids too... Water you can't see the bottom. Probably after being caught in a rip & had to be dragged back to shore when I was only 14yo... & the lifesavers kindly told me there are hammerheads that wait in the rip for fish to get caught... But definitely turned irrational phobia, because I couldn't even make myself swim in dams or rivers after that.

But when your kids want to swim in a nice waterhole & they see their mum is too scared... so I 'grinned & bore that' for a while before finally(to a large degree anyway) getting over it, but the real test came when we were on the Ningaloo Reef in WA 4 years ago and my kids wanted to go snorkelling... out over the 'drop off' with whale sharks!! Couldn't very well let them go jumping off a boat into OPEN OCEAN & not be there to... be eaten first to protect them!

It was utter terror jumping off the boat & floundering around(I can swim well but try doing it while panicking & holding a child's wrist in a death grip). Then I saw the whale shark & was mesmerised! It was AWESOME! As the fish swim faster than a person can, we'd swim with one for a bit, jump back on board & power ahead to jump back in & do another 'lap'. By the 4th or so time, kids, husband & some of the other passengers had had enough, but I was just firing up! I did a couple more without them & even followed the shark by myself for a while, as other passengers had quit by the last jump. Only time I freaked a bit was when the big fish dove down & disappeared into the dark depths underneath me.

Then my youngest - Jess again - wanted to go scuba diving & it was advertised that she was old enough, so we went to book, but we were told at her age they wanted a medical certificate that couldn't be got in town(nearest place was half a day Sth). But my family talked me into going anyway, alone. After my initial terror of jumping in & descending into the murk... it was SO AWESOME down there, I'm glad as a beginner I had to stay with an instructor, or I would have probably lost track of time... & air! We very nearly stayed another week & spent a lot more money so I could do my PADI certificate I was so smitten with it! Time & money ruled that out tho.

So it wasn't until last year & a visit to Vanuatu where my dad was working(volunteering, teaching the locals to sail) that I finally got to take the kids diving... and my dad, who made excuses about his ears, his heart, his age... but I talked him into it as a 74th birthday pressie & we all LOVED it. Tho on the first dive(we did 3), I was a 'mother hen' & was so preoccupied with fear for my kids and my dad, I didn't enjoy it as much.


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## SwissMiss (Aug 1, 2014)

@loosie, snorkeling with a whale shark  They are simply beautiful! No wonder you lost your fear of deep water right then and there!


Coming back to spiders: While I don't jump out my skin anymore when I see a spider, I still prefer them to be a ways away from me :wink:
One night while scuba diving I suddenly had the crazy idea that a spider was hiding in my mouthpiece and was now sitting on my tongue :shock: I spent a lot of time rinsing my mouth much to the consternation of my DH who probably thought I lost my mind :rofl:


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Captain Evil said:


> Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and Ghengis Khan. The Ghengis Khan phobia, unfortunately, became a little generalized to include Mongolia


You have confused the hell out of me now! Is there some other meaning?? You have to explain further??!


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Lukas the Spider is adorable!


I can remember being terrified of spiders as a little girl and my grandmother would always act so casual around critters of any kind... she always told me: It's more scared of you than you are of it.


I LOVE my fuzzy little jumping spiders.


Crab spiders are quite lovely too as they turn colors to match the flowers they're living on or around. I think my absolute favorites though are the big golden orb spiders and the yellow garden spiders. The yellow garden spiders are actually yellow and black, and they get huge, but they tend to guard my flowers and the eaves of my house and porch, so I let them be or even feed them from time. The black on their legs remind me of the long black gloves the glamorous, Old Hollywood Types used to wear. They just look like ' glamorous ladies' to me.


I do get freaked out by our Wolf Spiders... they're fierce hunters, so I like them patrolling my flowers, but they're also huge, sometimes have their brood on their back, carrying them around. I have never, ever been bitten by one, but I've disturbed them in my flower beds when there's still old leaf debris around from the previous autumn. They're big enough I can hear them scramble away and it spooks me because I immediately assume SNAKE! (Copperhead).


Uhm. Toads, Leopard frogs and lizards and skinks also spook me like that. Then I feel dumb.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

If you've not seen it...


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@boots, :rofl: Have you seen this band live? Very multi-talented, and aren't taking themselves too seriously! Thanks for sharing that.

This is my favourite song about spiders. The singer had nightmares about being eaten by spiders when he was a kid, and as an adult he turned that into a theatrical, hilarious, moody song with the loveliest guitar intro...


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Loved The Cure in my misspent youth, but haven't heard them for ages & didn't appreciate the words of this one years ago. It also reminded me 'with his tongue in my eye' of the urban legend that spiders drink from the corner of your eye when you're asleep!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

For me, they were a later thing, @loosie - my husband is a great fan, and their CDs formed part of his dowry. ;-) He lent me his iPod a few years ago when I was doing some farm work, I was around 40, and I listened to the album _Bloodflowers_ as my intro. It was written when the singer was around 40 as well, so it was really apt. Anyway, I listened to this album, was mesmerised, and just listened to it again all over. This was the first album in a long, long time (iPod age etc) that I could listen to as an album, without skipping a track - it doesn't have "fillers" and it's thematic, and musically gorgeous and evocative. It's without question one of my favourite albums of all time.

I gave the iPod back at the end of that day and said, "Wow, I didn't know The Cure did *that*!" Too much _Friday I'm In Love_ and _Love Cats_ on the radio! :rofl: And he said, "Oh yeah, have you heard the track called _Burn_?" I hadn't. More treats. Very cool to be discovering a wonderful band in midlife, and to go back through their long catalogue. _Disintegration_ is also amazing, which of course is where _Lullaby_ came from. And I do remember hearing Lullaby as a university student, and actually sitting down with my eyes closed if it came on the radio, but back then I was too poor to afford many CDs... and besides, as a teenager I thought The Cure were imbeciles. I needed serious role models, etc. I once got thrown out of an English classroom during class music project because I couldn't stop laughing at the track _Why Can't I Be You_. To my pedantic 15-year-old self, it was a question with an obvious answer... :rofl:

Anyway, the reason you don't hear from them is because they don't do promotional stuff anymore, and haven't for a long time. But, if you're a fan from long ago, check out _Bloodflowers_ - it's marvellous!


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

Forgot to say anything about this but-We have these big old nasty spiders that are about the size of wolf spiders just not hairy.








They get a lot bigger than the one in the picture. And they will get in saddles. Under the fenders and anywhere where there's a small opening. As soon as you start jostling the saddle around they usually leave, but that can be when you're cinching up and lifting the stirrup to do so. Then boom. It's right there in your face.
Worse is when it comes out of the saddle when you're riding. My sister would abandon ship at that point. It's happened to both my English and Western saddles, so nobody is safe. 

We also have these friendly guys. They're golden orb weavers, but we call them banana spiders. Most of them are about this big. 










The thing is, they often make huge webs consisting of multiple spiders that can stretch across a road (usually via power line or branches). They're mostly in the woods during the summer. And I mean like the Lord of the Rings Mirkwood woods. There will be tons of them and you can't take three steps without getting your face in a web. The spiders are not mean at all and you can just take them and hold them in your hands but still, it's gross. And they're right at the crawl-down-your-shirt level when you're on horseback too.The webs are everywhere and astonishingly strong. 


They can get bigger. We don't have the super jumbo ones, but other golden orb weavers in South America and stuff will catch birds in their webs. I've dropped a hiking stick against the webs and it held it almost upright. 

But yeah. We're not Australia but we're not short on enormous bugs. That's Florida's specialty.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

@loosie - Spiders drink from our eyes?!? Aaaaargh.

@SueC - I'm fortunate to have a daughter that is an event planner. I might never go anywhere except she calls me to "Come see..." So I've gotten to hang with this guy and a wide variety of others. This guy knows my daughter for about 11 years. If I'm around he teases saying to her " Ditch your mom and come on the road." Or to her "This weekend... You and me." It's my role to act appropriately horrified. I'm good at that. :-D

He has another song with a spider in it. "Trailer Park Fire." A line goes "How did this whole thing get out of hand? Someone was burning spiders with an aresol can."


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

I'll have to look up The Cure again, as I think I was only into their most popular stuff back when.

Funny how our tastes change so much over the years... & for me at least have often gone the opposite way to what I would have expected of my older self... I never liked 'rap crap' or punk when I was young, but in recent years... Beastie Boys, Violent Flems(can't help calling them that), then Hilltop Hoods, LOVE the Cat Empire including their early rap/hip hoppy stuff & Jackson Jackson, Punk Ska like The Selector & Subime, Arctic Monkeys, then there's Alice Cooper, Cake, the Chilli Peppers, ACDC, Nick Cave(& Lanie Lane's version of Jack The Ripper!), Machinegun Fellatio... Even(bit embarrassed to admit) bands like the Rednex! What's happening to meeee??!!

...And yet I was perplexed a decade or so ago when my Mum bought a Pink album!

But at the same time I also LOVE old style music I thought was rubbish when I was a teen - rediscovered Johnny Cash, Nancy Sinatra & Shirley Bassey, Ella Fitzgerald, Lead Belly(you know he originally did Black Betty??)... love old style jazz & folk - then there's fav new(er) old style goodies like Squirrel Nut Zippers, Melbourne's Flap & Rapskallion(sadly split up - their lyrics were awesome), Lanie Lane, Imelda May... then there's mad gypsy music like Fanfare Ciocarlia & Goran Bregovic... Does the word 'eclectic' spring to mind?? Never got into opera, but for Kate Miller Heidke's style of such tho!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Oh yeah! I love that Boots! Gotta look up that guy. Another style I hated when I was young was what I call 'Thigh slappin Hillbilly bootscootin music' like that. Love Charlie Daniels too...


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

@CheiTheRider LOL Made me remember... last summer, camping at Coffee Mill... SO MANY ORB SPIDERS in the woods... and Trigger... being 'that guy' that HAS to be lead horse... ran me through SO many webs. ONE the spider didn't have time get out of the way... the web broke because Trigger's head went through it, the spider swings ahead of us, and here it comes back. I see this spider, swinging my way like Spiderman, on this looonnnng line of silk. I'm in saddle saying some choice things, trying to get Trigger to do something, move left, move right, ANYTHING to let this spider whiff past me... and it splatted right onto my leg and ran off to the back of the saddle. I managed to brush it off gently so it didn't die, but what was really funny was, Trigger saw it swinging back toward us and was like, OH NO SPIDER, SPIDER, OMG SPIDER... and the way he moved saved his hide, but not mine.

Thanks buddy.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@ChieTheRider, great photos! 

This is a Christmas Spider - also called Jewel Spider - there are hundreds of the little critters in low webs in the grass and in wire fences in summertime here in Western Australia.


















@boots, all that sounds like tremendous fun!  Re spiders, apparently we eat quite a few in our sleep in our lifetimes, along with other little critters. I probably eat more of them when riding through swampland at sunset while forgetting to close my lips tightly! ;-)
@loosie, oh goodie, are we talking music? :happydance: I sort of skipped the "young and having fun" stage as a teenager and in my 20s, so all the music I liked then I still like - with one exception: I can't abide dysfunctional love songs anymore - which really killed The Cranberries for me, despite the gorgeous voice and nice music. Sadly, Ms O'Riordan didn't outgrow that unfortunate stage many of us go through... Sinead O'Connor did, and I still love most of her stuff. I liked U2 in the 80s and still love all their early albums, but went off them in the 90s... although _Songs of Innocence_ was a recent album of theirs I listen to as much as _Bloodflowers_, it has a lot of depth, and thank God that band is out of their multimedia phase... I still like The Waterboys (and they're still going, like The Cure, but I don't think they talk to each other :rofl, and Big Country (although sadly Stuart Adamson died in his 40s as a consequence of alcoholism and mental illness), and World Party. I still think Stevie Ray Vaughan was an amazing guitar player and I remember the day his helicopter crashed and how shocked I was...

And I'm still very fond of Neil Young in many of his incarnations, Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp, Hall & Oates (yes really! - brilliant live!), Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Pink Floyd, Suzanne Vega, etc etc - all acts that generously kept on giving with new album releases through the years that didn't have me running for cover.

In the 1990s I turned off the radio because I hated grunge (still do, greasy guitar-shredding yobbos, I think they all need to brush their teeth!) and went sideways into folk and classical, which has so many amazing things... Here, I picked up Capercaillie, Jenny Thomas (Australian violinist who did the theme for The Shire on _Lord of The Rings_), Alasdair Fraser, Mary Jane Lamond, and many other amazing artists like that. On the classical side, I discovered Arvo Pärt, Bach, Paganini, Vivaldi, Tartini, Mozart, Beethoven, etc etc (and I can't abide Mahler).

This was a nice detour, although my DH, when I met him in 2007, had bookcases full of music and said, "If you missed the 90s, you've got some remedial work to do!"  And yeah, there was some nice alternative stuff amongst all the grunge. I really like Bjork, for instance, but not too much of her at once! And I love some of the stuff that The Pixies did, then, before and since...

The most recent band I got excited about was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - I love their energy and that you can't place them in any period. I never really liked Siouxsie & The Banshees (did you know Robert Smith gigged with them as a guitarist for a few years?), but KarenO really hits the spot. Here's a punk-influenced version of a song, followed by an acoustic version - and I can't make up my mind which is better. For the first version at least, make sure you are on a decent sound system, not on a phone or tinny computer speakers, yegads. You should feel the bass reverberating in your thorax! Or you miss the point...











And Kate Miller-Heidke, of course!  And so many others... there's actually a huge amount of great music around, through a lot of ages...


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Yeah, those are like the Jewel spiders I was talking about Sue. And wow, Chie, your version of the Golden Orb is gooorgeous! But... I think I'd give up horse riding if I had to ride thru those!!

Back to music Sue... & whoever else is interested - big thread derail fftopic: :Angel: ... Wasn't ever into much pop, tho when I hear some 80's pop now I like some of what I hated then. INXS & Culture Club(tho I wouldn't believe for ages that Boy George was a guy) I liked though. Yeah, love Bjork, but ditto, in small doses. Wasn't a fan of the Cranberries - wasn't she the one that sounded like an alley cat?? I still love Paul Kelly & Hoodoo Guru's. I remember hearing 'To Her Door' & being so shocked at hearing him say 'I'm walking out your ..... door!' And Hoodoos won my quirky side starting a song with "And another thing..." There was a Pommy band in 90's, can't recall their name, song was 'You Gotta Be' that was our wedding song... but then other wedding songs I chose included Eurythmics 'Love You Like a Ball & Chain' and Paul Kelly's 'Dumb Things'... 

Yeah, all those older bands you mentioned, still love. Pink Floyd was the cause of my first boyfriend & I getting together(we were the only ones in our schools we found that had even heard of them!) & we went to their concert in Melbourne - that was my first ever concert... which seriously spoiled subsequent ones for me! I remember I was doing TOP(a tertiary art course) when I came to school & saw this gorgeous guy playing his guitar in tears - it was the day after Stevie Ray Vaughan died. Still love Stevie - and his own idol, Jimi Hendrix. And Eric Clapton, who I learned was meant to be in Stevie's helicopter that night but ended up in the one in front...

And ZZ Top. Went to see them in Melbourne, backed up by Rose Tattoo about 7 or so years ago in Melbourne - talk about bikie city - Harleys galore! My husband & I felt quite young & small, sitting between all these older bikies! But I didn't realise ZZ had been around quite so long, until I learned it was them that originally helped Jimi Hendrix get famous, and Jimi died in 1971! We're in an area now that was a huge Hells Angels area & every year they had a massive concert, I just learned from a 'real' local was at a private property up the road, at which apparently ZZ played at!

And then there's Cream, The Doors, Janis Joplin, David Bowie, Skyhooks, Daddy Cool, Queen... I love that my kids aren't into new pop & love the older stuff too. We went to see Bohemian Rhapsody together ~ 'Bo Rhap' according to them now :lol: ~ and then they went again with a few friends... then my eldest bought the DVD as soon as it was released! I've had to ban Queen in the house, because they played it over & over & over! We're waiting impatiently for Rocketman to come out in cinemas in a month now. Hopefully they'll do one on David Bowie soon...

I love music, esp with good lyrics. I think I'd potentially like any style if it has clever lyrics. One of the first Cat Empire songs I heard & loved was 'Beanie' :lol: When I discovered John Butler and The Cat Empire they'd been around a while... and to my horror, John came from my area & used to play at our fav local pub, and the Cat Empire played there too(& my bro used to go see Harry Angus & then the Cats almost weekly, playing in pubs & bars in Melbourne before they were too famous), but they were off to bigger & better by the time I discovered them :-( Kids & I have seen Cat Empire about 5 times in concert tho. Oh & another recent one that I LOVE is Mojo Juju - warning that serious Christians probably won't like this, but if you're game, go listen to the lyrics of her 'God and the Devil' song - love it! :clap:

I'll shut up now, as I could go on - about as passionate about my music as I am about horses!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Oh & back on track... well, snake phobia anyway - surely the silly/cute eastern hognose snake that plays dead (can't find the vid I saw) would have to help some over their phobia??


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I've got a snake story from yesterday I promise to post later, but... @loosie, my musical encyclopaedia just came home and knew almost everyone on your previous and follow-up posts on music, and told me paragraphs on each off the top of his head! He said, "Pretty good taste, a tad led astray in some areas!" :rofl:

He also says he's so far the person with the most eclectic musical taste he knows - but that he "listens to a lot of crap nobody else will listen to, some of which barely qualifies as music." He likes some genres I don't - I've never taken to rap, for instance, and I don't generally enjoy heavy metal, but he has contemporary rock / alternative / indie, movie soundtracks, jazz, classical, glitch, trip hop, chip tunes, goth, doom jazz, electronic stuff like Jean-Michel Jarre, European ambient techno, swampy blues, and a few other things... His heavy metal does not include hair metal, which he loathes - but does include progressive metal.

Though I don't like heavy metal, I do looove this particular version of a very famous heavy metal song:






Brett said to say, "Aussie Aussie oy oy oy!" as you have a good smattering of Australian bands in your posts. We were amused about your ZZ Top concert experience and my music encyclopaedia said, "Do you think those beards grew overnight?" :rofl: Did you see them in _Back To The Future_ pretending to be a country band with banjos, and spinning their banjos around? :rofl:

When I was 13, I knew Boy George had Y-chromosomes, and because I lived in a homophobic, ultra-conventional household, it was good for me to see people who were different and comfortable with who they were. I put up a poster of this person in my bedroom, and got a blood nose over it, courtesy of my father, who used choice terms like "perverse" and "poofter". (Marilyn Manson hadn't been invented yet! ) I thought Boy George had a good voice, and I still think that, but my musical tastes were unsophisticated at that age, and I grew beyond his outfit quickly - quality of instrumental playing, lyrics etc didn't stand up after that. Not when I was discovering other stuff... we had a university radio station called 6UVS-FM back then who did all sorts of interesting programmes... and I discovered them at 14, and got somewhat educated by the experience.

Ah yes, to so many of the artists you mentioned! Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, The Doors, Janis Joplin, etc etc.

Favourite Australian bands: Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls / The Messengers, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Audreys, The Cruel Sea, The Whitlams, Kate Miller-Heidke & co of course, Monsieur Camembert... The Triffids and The Church didn't do bad stuff, but a recent interview with Steve Kilbey convinced me he lost too many brain cells to drugs, unfortunately... (Brett wants to add to the Australian list, The Falling Joys, Avalanches, Schvendes, Downsyde, Powderfinger...)

I'm afraid neither of us can embrace The Hoodoo Gurus, or Skyhooks, or Rose Tattoo, or indeed Cold Chisel (although Jimmy Barnes has an interesting back story and interviews really well) - some stuff gives us a rash, for personal idiosyncratic reasons - but I'm sure lots of stuff on our shelves would give you a rash too! :rofl:

Have you ever had a chance to catch Monsieur Camembert live?

@boots, I played Brett your clips, he enjoyed them too!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

SueC said:


> :rofl: Did you see them in _Back To The Future_ pretending to be a country band with banjos, and spinning their banjos around? :rofl:


No! I will have to watch it again just for that!

Yeah I'm not into metal of any sort either - dunno what hair metal is. My husband was & still likes thrash stuff - it was his love of acdc that finally wore me down. I now enjoy that... sometimes & in great moderation! And I'm not a rose tattoo fan, just that they were playing with ZZ! Tho their 'we can't be beaten' I love... along with the rest of the red dog soundtrack!

That vid you posted - don't kno that song but kids & I went to see the 2 Cellos boys when they were in town - love them too. 

Oh and do you kno of aussies The Crooked Fiddle Band? After seeing them years ago at a folk festival, my kids gave up learning guitar in favor of violin - & luckily we found a teacher who loved - & taught them gypsy tunes - more 'fiddle' style than violin - as Charlie Daniels puts it...

And HOW could I forget the Cruel Sea & Tex??! Awesome! And yes to some others you mentioned... powder finger, audreys... tho between us we have mentioned maybe 1/4 of the bands I have in my collection. Oh & used to like cold chisel for a bit, now not, but Ian moss is great - saw him few years ago too.


> Have you ever had a chance to catch Monsieur Camembert live?


Never heard of him.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Oh & there's hope for the youth of today - one of my kid's friends is rapt in the Beatles, one has been seen in a T-Rex T-shirt - and when my kids started at the school last year, they came home to tell me the Vice Principle's name is Mark Bolan! And eldest came home a few weeks ago saying they had an argument with a mate at school over lyrics of an ELO song!

Have seen the B52's & Blondie & Cyndi Lauper(loved all them as a teen too) in recent years at a local winery.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

_The promised snake story, from my journal this morning._

*THE BIRD PUZZLE*

On Tuesday, I felt flat because of an AGM that had gone on until late Monday night, and spent some time just chilling and reading a book. It's an excellent book - _The Cuckoo's Calling_, a detective novel by JK Rowling under pseudonym - it's written with delicious use of language and sharp social observation, and the detective and his clever secretary are completely endearing, plus the puzzle too is excellent, so I'm trying to write this post and get back to it to find out whodunnit...

Anyway, I was engrossed in this thing when suddenly I became conscious that the birds in our garden were making a loud and riotous cacophony, and that these were dozens and dozens of tiny little birds - mostly silvereyes (the size of a mouse) and a few willy wagtails - sitting in the one bush, about four metres from me, with their chatter growing increasingly frantic. So, I opened the French door and stood on the paving, watching intently. The first thing that struck me is that none of the birds were flying away on my account - they were tightly bunched in the bush, twittering incessantly, even as I moved closer. I was standing really still trying to see what sorts of birds they were, as they were much hidden by foliage and it was difficult to see an entire one - when I saw a long, narrow movement going through the bush. Next thing, a little reptilian face turned, with golden colouring under its neck and a little tongue flicking in and out. A tiger snake, actually climbing around in the bush! And the little birds, ganging up, collecting around it in tight chattering groups, just out of striking range. Wow! This isn't something I've seen before!

We live with a few hundred acres of bushland at the back of us, including a swampy valley floor teeming with frogs. Dugites and tiger snakes are very common on our block - we must have hundreds around, but they are mostly shy - you don't see them out in the open that often, even though they are there. Both types are highly venomous, and grow around 2m or more in length. The main problem is dogs, if they search for and attack them, but our kelpie really has snake sense, probably from her dingo ancestors in the hereditary mix of the breed. Snakes are put off by vibrations in the ground, and try therefore to keep away from large animals, and from humans if they can hear them. So, if you're in dugite or tiger snake territory and can't see your footing, stomp a lot (preferably not on a snake though!). I occasionally see one riding, but always on the retreat.

You have to be careful to wear adequate footwear when bush-bashing - walking in concealed footing - and also in your vegetable garden, with where you put your hands and feet. It's just commonsense really. We have a big frog pond in the middle of our vegetable garden, and occasionally I see a snake in it. Basically, don't step on them, don't get your hands near them, always assume there is one where you can't see the ground, and you'll behave safely. If you do have an accident, the hospitals have good antivenenes, and the majority of people survive bites - it's infants and the elderly that are at particular risk, plus people bitten in unfortunate places or too far from hospital. In Australia, more people die falling out of bed each year than from snakebite. Really! In 2007-2016 in Australia, there were 25 deaths from venomous snakes and lizards, and 523 deaths from falling out of bed! See this article on the actual statistics:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-...eality/9277098

By the time I had the camera the other day, the snake had disappeared. But, I found this clip of a tiger snake climbing a tree on YouTube - isn't it clever how they can do that despite not having any appendages?





 

I mentioned the little incident to my husband when he got home, and he said, "Wow, we've not seen one in the upper garden for years!" And then, "Of course! It's because Romeo isn't running around the garden anymore. He was always going _ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump_ all around the house, vibrating the ground, and it kept the snakes away, especially as he was spending more than 12 hours a day in the garden each day, in the last few years of his life!" (We had to put him down two weeks ago, at the ripe old age of 34 years, 5 months.)


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

> glitch, trip hop, chip tunes, goth, doom jazz


Oh & I don't even know what they _are_! Can't stand Techno dance(how do you dan't to that??). As one friend put it, never been on the kind of drugs that makes you think of that as music!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Wikipedia is your friend on those genres! :rofl: 

Monsieur Camembert is an eclectic Australian band. There's little around on the Internet, they do a lot of really interesting stuff and have won awards. I've got one of their CDs, after a tip-off from a friend!






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsieur_Camembert


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Oh ace Sue! Another one to add to my collection! Reminded me a bit of Rapskallion - they have a few on youtube. Then I remembered the Amsterdam Klezmer Band - silly fun!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^& I see a couple of Leonard Cohen covers by Mister Camembert too!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Rapskallion tasters - spewing they split up...


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

loosie said:


> ^& I see a couple of Leonard Cohen covers by Mister Camembert too!


Yeah, those are excellent!!! The CD _Absynthe_ is well worth acquiring. They do a wonderful _Dance Me To The End Of Love_, etc etc.

Wow, I'd never heard of Rapskallion - thankyou for a fruitful exchange of weird bands! :clap:


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## MissLulu (Feb 3, 2019)

When it comes to music I let my oldest daughter pick music for me. People will ask what kind of music I like and my reply is, "I don't know" because my oldest kid knows my Spotify password and she will make playlists for me. I do like some 80s music (reminds me of being a teen) and I play it when I'm alone in the house.

I have had friends and family visit and worry about rattlesnakes. I have lived in the desert for 18 years and have never encountered one. I have been told that you are most likely to get a bite if you step on one so when we hike in the desert in the warmer months I always stay on the trail and keep my dogs on a leash. I had a vet that loved to hike and told me a story of hiking in the desert at night with his friends. They were enjoying the hike with only the moon and stars for light. One person heard a strange noise and decided to turn on his flashlight and there were dozens of rattlesnakes all around them. My vet said that everyone turned on their flashlights and tip-toed back to their cars!

Since I used to be terrified of spiders, when I was a teen and found a spider in the house I would run to my mom and say, "Mom! There is a spider in the house and it is as big as my hand! Help!" This usually involved a spider the size of a quarter but my mom was patient and would get the spider and put it outside. When I was 17 a family friend, that lived in Hawaii, offered to let me come stay to see Hawaii and have a fun vacation. One day, when I was alone in the house, I went into the bathroom and just above the toilet, on the wall, was a cane spider and it was as big as my hand!! I stared at it for a bit and then closed the door and was really thankful that there was another bathroom in the house. When the friend came home he was very amused at how frightened I was and went in the bathroom and scooped up the spider and put him outside.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@loosie, Brett doesn't like Monsieur Camembert, but that's OK - the personal tastes of spouses and friends compared to ours are like Venn diagrams, with some overlap and some not. So in our case, there's stuff we both love to bits and have on around the house when together, and there's stuff we introduce each other to, which is generally fruitful, and stuff we're not crazy about in the other's collection, but can tolerate, and a very few things that give the other person a rash.

And because of that, he and I have an agreement that I will never play Monsieur Camembert or Inuit Mouth Music around him, and that he will never play Tool or Radiohead around me! :rofl:

What gives you the worst rash?

I bet the B-52s were great live! I liked them way back from _Rock Lobster_!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Umm, Andrew still seems to have the same taste in music as he did 20+ years ago, so there are a fair few things give me a rash of his - too much ACDC - esp with Brian whatshisname post Bon Scott. He still likes yep, Radiohead, Deep Purple, Led Zep - I still love them, but in small doses these days & I love Robert Plant's solo stuff - he did an album with Jimmy Page that was mostly covers of their old stuff but with traditional Egyptian/Arabic music/style that I loved. And while I don't mine the good old Blues, he plays that till I'm going off my head! I've been able to convert him to some Cat Empire & Mojo Juju, not much else. Kids & I go to concerts & he stays home!


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

On the music topic, I am a fairly eclectic music lover, I mean, I'm even enjoying The Hu right now (Mongolian metal band). But for country, I cannot endure the 'new stuff', its just soulless. There's few new artists that I like, very, very few songs.

HOWEVER.

May I recommend: Cody Jinks, The Steel Drivers, and Chris Stapleton. The Steel Drivers is the original name of Chris Stapleton's band. Don't know if it fell apart and he went solo or what, but both he and Cody Jinks are excellent options.


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## DreamerR (Dec 17, 2017)

I've caused many incidents involving my fear of spiders. Mostly wolf spiders.

One time there was a wolf spider ON Justice when I was going to tack up. I came to the conclusion that the only solution was to throw a broom at it. So I threw the broom (very softly) and it ended in Justice breaking the crossties lol. 

Again over the summer we had to clean out a tack box and it was full of wolf spiders. My trainer gave us each a drawer to clean out and when I opened mine a GIANT one ran up my arm. I knocked down an entire WALL of saddles, spilled a can of feed all over the ground, knocked multiple people onto the ground (little barn girls), shattered my phone, and caused a freak-out among the horses. All in a span of about 45 seconds. In my defense, this spider was the size of my hand. 

Instead of trying to get over my fear my trainer just decided to exclude my from activities where we could run into a spider. I am perfectly ok with it.

I'll attach a picture of what the little demon looks like.


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

If we are doing favorite our favorite Australian songs this is one of my all time favorites:


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

I also really enjoyed the stuff she did with Shane Nicholson:


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

As far as spiders go I have a daughter who FREAKS OUT when she sees one. I think girls like her are why they invented those realistic looking little plastic spiders. Literally hours of entertainment over the years 

and here is someone who really doesn't like spiders, LOL!
https://www.foxnews.com/us/woman-crashes-car-because-of-spider


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@loosie, I'm going to vent! Specifically, about Radiohead! That song of theirs, _Creep_! :angrily_smileys: I want to wear pointy shoes and kick the singer's bottom! He should go work in a soup kitchen to do something useful that's not gazing at his own mouldy navel, and that might help him understand he's not the centre of the universe! "I wish I was special, so f-ing special!" mg: Grrrr! Go chop some vegies for the disadvantaged, instead of pulling this silly "I'm such a tortured poet" stuff, and wallowing like a burrowing ground frog...


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

To Andy, Yeah, Kasey Chambers too - love her silly 'Pony' song too. Country music is something I've only enjoyed in the last... decade or so too. Pity it blocked me for some reason for that first vid, but the second one is awesome.

And you are very naughty, tormenting your daughter with that 'entertainment'!!

And Sue, no, Radiohead & the likes is all 'blah blah' to me & I haven't noticed the lyrics. Oh Sue, Mama Kin is another you might like - she is(well was, not sure now) John Butler's partner and Nicky Bomba's sister.


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## Captain Evil (Apr 18, 2012)

loosie said:


> You have confused the hell out of me now! Is there some other meaning?? You have to explain further??!


No, loosie, I am just terrified of Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and of Ghengis Khan and Mongolia in general. It used to be bad... especially Chessies, because they crop up more often than Ghengis Khan does. 

We are watching Grand Tour right now, and have just finished the 11th episode. Not many more to go, and I am very aware that the Mongolian episode is coming up soon... yikes! 

No, I am ready for it. I'm over it. 

Chesapeakes, well, that has gotten better, but is not great. I still start vibrating when I see one, but at least I don't break out into a full sweat. I have 40 stitches from an Irish Setter, have broken up, singlehandedly, a fight between two German Shepherds and two Pitbulls, yet I am not afraid of those breeds. 

Chessies? Yup. I think I neet to get a Chessie puppy and that would probably lay that one to rest. But I am a little too afraid of them...


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Umm, I would have thought it was... a few centuries too late to worry about Mr Khan! Just don't watch the kid's educational show Horrible Histories if you have it over there! Reminds me, I once met a guy called Attila & he was a Hungarian... I giggled quite a bit I'm afraid.


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## Captain Evil (Apr 18, 2012)

Hard not to giggle at that! 

As far as phobias go though, I think I have it pretty easy. I mean, what is one more likely to encounter, a spider or Ghengis Khan? Even a Chesapeake Bay Retriever: unless I go to a dog show or a duck hunt, I'm pretty safe.

So, all in all, not too debilitating... but still surprisingly powerful.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Ooooh, I looooove _Horrible Histories_, @loosie! 

And did you ever catch _Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice For All Creation_? Biology on mushrooms, I think! :rofl:
@Captain Evil, did you have a bad experience with that sort of dog in toddlerhood? And maybe get nightmares over Genghis Khan stories as a littlie? Or did these phobias apparently pop up randomly?


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## Captain Evil (Apr 18, 2012)

They are just random, as far as I can tell. Many years ago I decided to tackle them, and began with the Chessy thing, as they were more accessible than Ghengis Khan. I started looking at pictures in dog books, and worked my way up to dog shows. I finally got to the point where I was standing next to an actual Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and not totally dying. 

So I got brave, and asked the guy if I could pet his dog. He said "Yes", I looked down at the dog, and it looked back at me with those eerie peeled-grape eyes, and growled.

So I backed silently away and decided I could live with that particular phobia.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

You may need to find a _friendly_ Chessie, @Captain Evil! :rofl: Talk about Murphy in evidence here!

I remember I had an acquired dog phobia for a while at preschool age, because I was chased and bitten painfully by a neighbour's evil miniature dachshund, and because he was so small, all the adults were laughing as the dog pursued me, and nobody realised my skin had been stripped off me...

With more appropriate follow-up from adults, I probably wouldn't have felt quite so on my own about it, and not gotten so scared of dogs in response. However, that was cured when I was 8 and the family got a dog, which started out as a little playful puppy and ended up as a large playful standard poodle who loved water!










One phobia I still have residually is that steep drops freak me out if I'm too close to them, especially man-made drops. I've desensitised myself over the years, for example, by walking on the Tree Top walk in the Valley Of The Giants, which is a swinging suspended metal walkway through the treetops of the giant Karris and Tingles near Walpole, Western Australia, with a mesh walkway you can see through!  I just kept going around and around on it, until the nausea and the rapid heart rate settled. Also for my first few laps I avoided looking through the flooring. When I got more advanced, I started looking through the flooring as well. All in all though, you can see that it's a phobia very closely related to sensible behaviour around potentially risky drops, and has survival value (as long as you keep your head).

One thing I can't do though, is climb things like the Gloucester Tree, which is just a spiral ladder around a tall tree. 










I've tried, but I ended up going black before my eyes about 10m up, and then decided that although I'd never actually passed out before in my life, this didn't guarantee that I never would. Passing out at a height actually would result in going splat, and this was something not worth the risk - although I'd happily come back with a safety harness to prevent fatal consequences from sudden loss of consciousness. One thing I did do after that, though, it to go to Hollybank Treetop Adventures with Brett when we were in Tasmania, and this ended up being amazing fun, and since we were all in harnesses, no risk at all from passing out etc (and I didn't pass out, it was incredible!). Here's some Internet photos of the place:




























I think a safe supported environment like that is excellent for desensitisation from excessive concerns!


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Oh mate the Gloucester tree... I see it has steel rungs now. We(well, my husband & others... I only got as far as about the 5th rung) climbed that 20 odd years ago. The pegs were timber then. We were camped on a river in Pemberton a few days later, when the ranger came by & asked if we'd climbed it. We said we had & he said just as well or we'd have missed out... it was closed for maintenance because white ants had eaten some of the pegs!!! 

Went to the Bicentennial Tree too... with steel pegs. I managed to force myself to climb that a bit further... until I heard a click & opened my eyes to look down on Andrew taking a picture of me - hurriedly closed my eyes tight again & climbed back down!


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## MissLulu (Feb 3, 2019)

@*Captain Evil* The problem with phobias is they are usually not rational. I have a dog that is terrified of strange dogs. She picks the sweetest dogs to be afraid of... Pugs.... Golden Retrievers..... Just a few weeks ago I met someone that is terrified of moths. I was at the barn and found a Hawk Moth. 



https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hawk_moths.shtml


Really, they are the most amazing creatures. The first time I saw one I thought it might be a humming bird. Except it was dusk and I didn't think a humming bird would be out at that time. I decided to take a photo and discovered it wasn't a bird. So, I am at the barn and I see a hawk moth settled on a slow feeder. And I am thinking this is amazing! I get to be close to a Hawk Moth!! I get him onto my index finger and am so happy. I love these little creatures! And my trainer turns pale as a sheet and looks like she is going to vomit. She says, "I am terrified of moths". So I took the little moth to the back of Lulu's stall and set him/her free and felt bad that I had caused my trainer so much stress.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

In postscript to this post: https://www.horseforum.com/general-...ng-arachnophobia-802819/page2/#post1970704831

I had to kill the snake this afternoon, because it had hung around all week. Tiger snakes are quite territorial, so relocating them doesn't work too well, unless you take them a long way away, and then, ecologically, since they're not in short supply, they'll be making life harder for their fellow snakes in the relocation area (and for the prey animals) if relocated...

We unfortunately have to do this sometimes, since we're not willing to risk accidental bites to us or our critters (and associated huge veterinary bills - kelpie Max next door cost $800 to treat when he was bitten recently) when they hang around at such close quarters all the time. My safe-to-humans, quick-for-snake technique involves a long-handled metal-tooth rake, and a sharp spade. It's a one-two action: You pin the snake with the rake, and when you're sure it can't wiggle out of the restraint, you take its head off quickly and cleanly with the spade. Make sure your spade is sharp - I still shudder in recollection of one time I killed a snake with a blunt spade twenty years ago, when it became a choking session, instead of a quick kill - because of the blunt spade coupled with soft ground...

This tiger snake was about 1.5m long and very well fed, presumably on all the frogs in our garden. It's a pity, it was a beautiful creature, but the frogs are applauding already...


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^And bats... how could anyone be afraid of cute(if often ugly) little bats?? 

My dogs have been well socialised, both with people and other dogs & animals. But one of them has 2 rather embarrassing phobias - she is racist... and police-ist!! We have black neighbours(very dark Kenyans), and their boy comes up for a lift to school with my kids. He's the nicest kid, good with the dogs, does the right thing to not confront them or be in their face or anything, but one dog has remained terrified of him. And now, if ever we see other dark skinned people while out & about she's nervous. 

Then one day I had the cops come round(was nearly run off the road by some idiot that did it for FUN!). My dogs went happily to the knock at the door - they think any visitor - & most strangers - are friends. But when I opened the door, she took one look at the guys & bolted! Now if ever she sees cops down the street, she gets frightened! 

So... unfounded superstitions aren't confined to humans in the least!


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Speaking of spiders 😱😱 I just found this article from 2 years ago. New spider species found in Mexico. It's the size of a softball!! Not a golf ball, not a baseball, a SOFTBALL!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...tm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@HombresArablegacy, did you see one of the links in the article you linked us to. "if you're an arachnophobe please go here"? I was curious:






:happydance:


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

No, I didn't see that. Cute though.


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