Black Widows

I have had quite a few close ups with Black Widows. This is the most recent one and the only one I have a picture of. This was at one of Danny's baseball games. I turned over a rock (don't even think about asking me why, I just do these things) and saw a Black Widow. Quickly I jumped back and calmly said, "Dad, I found a Black Widow." I said it calmly because it was the 4th time this has happened to me. He came and took 2 pictures of it. You can tell that this is indeed a black widow, because you can see it has some red on it's belly. If you saw it at another angle you would see that the red part of it is in the shape of a hour glass. You may not see it, but around it were many baby black widows who were brown. The big brown ball you see is a sack. Either the baby spiders were new borns or there were about to be more. We did nothing with the spider, but left the rock turned up.

2 of the other times I saw black widows were at school. Once was outside during recess. We had to finish up our work at this table and I saw a Black Widow on its web 1 foot from my leg. Another time I was next to this inch wide crack in the wall where there was a black widow. The closest I have ever been was touching one. At camp I signed up for a class in camping out skills were we learned how to make a fire with sticks (I really do not remember how to do that one) using a knife, using matches, making knots, and some of these other things. We were having a talk about a scavenger hunt we were going on the next day. I was sitting at a picnic bench sliding my finger through the spaces between pieces of wood when I felt something strange. I jerked my hand away and screamed,"A BLACK WIDOW!!!! AAAAAH!! I JUST TOUCHED A BLACK WIDOW!!" All the girls screamed and we ran away from the table. A ranger guy came and caught the spider in a jar. He came and asked me if it bit me and if I was all right. It didn't bite me, and I think it was sleeping because it did not move until it was in the jar trying to get out. He said he was gonna give it as a present to his nephew. What a weirdo!