One of Those Mornings

I admit I think of myself as a fairly fearless farm girl.  Things don't bother me too much.  Butchering animals, worms of all sorts in the garden, on dead things, snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, even 'possums on the back porch.  But there are days...It could have been the fact that I was just tired after long hours of working at my full-time job and I was just not in the mood to get up at 4:30 that day.  Maybe it was PMS.  Maybe it was just too much...

I knew there was a black snake living in the cabinets in the tool shed.  We had still been getting eggs and there were no mice or anything around, so it was not really a big deal at this point in time.  Yet, on this fateful morning, the snake skin that draped from the cabinet door down the shelves played havoc with my nerves.  It was almost like one of those badly made horror movies where you scream 'don't do it you idiot!'  I positioned just right and opened all the cabinet doors one by one.  Nope, nothing, well, except that 4ft long skin.  Instead of relief I felt tension and found myself trying to tiptoe in my boots.  I took a few breaths and decided to go ahead and continue to get the goats to the kennel for their grass and also so the chickens could eat in peace.

Infamous snake skin

Let's continue the bad horror flick...
I am not normally an arachnophobia-sufferer, but something happened in the wee hours of the morning when I flipped on the light to move the goats to the kennel.   I saw one pretty little round black spider with the undeniable red markings.  I grabbed a 1x2 piece of lumber that was leaning against the wall and began twirling that freakily fuzzy web hanging above me and where I (or the kids or hubby) gather eggs everyday.  Then she dropped, not gracefully down a single silk thread, no, just dropped...to the floor...AND then dozens of little black spots began to move and drop to the floor.  My blood pressure raised, along with goose bumps and plain old shivers.  I think I beat the goats out of the barn.  I had hoped the goats followed, but didn't really check until I rounded the corner. 

I stopped and started crying or yelling or both in the middle of the yard.  Something to the effect of nope, I am done, can't do this, and I am selling the animals, blah, blah, blah.  Apparently, I continued this rant as I put the girls in the kennel and made it into the house, started the laundry, took a shower, dressed,  and then found Bruce to let him hear about it too.  I don't think he understood as he remained calm and confused at my state of frenzy.

I was fine once I got to work-nice and sterile work environment.  After a few hours of normal breathing I decided I would do a thorough cleaning of the barn.  It was due anyway.  So the weekend is planned.