Just scraping by

Actually, I'm done with the scraping. I've removed as much of the dead paint from the concrete

wall as I could. I scraped the paint from each hole, then scrubbed out the excess flakes with a wire brush. After three days and several bloody knuckles, I finally started putting on primer. Using a 1" brush, I spread the primer into each hole. I ran out of daylight before I ran out of primer, so I called it quits at about 8:30.


Good thing I quit when I did. A couple of hours later I went out there and saw what I later deduced to be a brown widow spider climbing around about 2 feet from where I quit. It ran up into the wall, so I looked closer and saw that up underneath the very bottom opening, all the way to one side, there was a nest (click the picture for a close-up... if you dare). If I had kept painting I would have eventually stuck my hand under there. Had that been the case I'd probably be typing this with a bandage on my hand and a good dose of antibiotics coursing through me. I did a little research on widow spider bites:

"The bite from the widow spider causes a set of symptoms in the bite victim known collectively as latrodectism. The initial bite is often painless and goes unnoticed; at worst it will feel like a pinprick. The toxin then travels through the nervous system. The first significant symptom is a dull, numbing ache in the region of the actual bite. This ache may progress to painful muscle cramps in the large muscle masses of the body, particularly the abdomen. Additional symptoms may include sweating, nausea, a rise in blood pressure, leg cramps, muscle tremors, loss of muscle tone, heartbeat irregularities, and vomiting. Symptoms and pain begin between 15 and 60 minutes after the bite and generally peak within one to three hours. Symptoms are usually completely dissipated within 12 to 24 hours. In extremely rare cases (<1%), death may occur. Very young children and elderly adults are the most susceptible to the widow venom and, therefore, the most likely to experience severe symptoms."

SPIDER UPDATE (next day)
Even though I destroyed its nest with a paint stirrer and sprayed a few ounces of bug spray up there last night, Mr. Spider was still there. Always one to tempt fate, I took some daytime shots of it:




Another topic. So how big do owls get in Florida? A few nights ago I was awoken to a very loud "hooo!" I thought it might be an owl, but it was too loud - about as loud as a dog's bark. Then I realized that I've never actually heard an owl hoot in the wild, so maybe that's how loud they are. It kept hooting about every 15 seconds, then I noticed that both of my cats were staring out the window up at the power lines. I could see a shape up there, so I quietly went outside with my flashlight. That flashlight sucks, so I could only make out a large brown oval, about 2 feet tall. I went inside for a better flashlight, came back out no more than ten seconds later, and it was gone. I never even heard it flapping its wings, which is another sign that it was an owl. Or that Predator monster.