Operation 'Tonight We Dine On Spider Blood' (Ben named the operation...)

Today we found something terrible.  The biggest black widow either of us have ever seen (and you have to remember we live in the land of black widows).  Hold up your thumb, everything above your top knuckle?  That's how big this spiders gross, bulging, suspiciously pregnant looking body was.  It was the BIGGEST. GROSSEST. HUGEST. ICKIEST thing.  In the picture below, that's not a little fly it's devouring...it's a huge mama jama cricket.  This spider was as big as your fist. Bleasdfhasklf.  

At first, I wanted to let it live.  The buddhist in me did not want to kill something that wasn't doing any harm.  Well, then we googled, and turns out, you're supposed to kill the crap out of black widows.  Especially when they are near your house.  Especially when you have a dog.  Especially when you have a toddler who likes picking up and putting in his mouth the most dangerous things he can find.  Especially then.

So we started plotting.  They are nocturnal (except when hunger emboldens them apparently) so we knew we would attack at dusk.  While Ben drank a beer, I went on a spider web hunt.  Widows make their webs about a foot off the ground in quiet places.  I found about a dozen webs in our backyard.  (YUCK).  Then we went to Home Depot and bought two bottles of killer stuff.  Once the sun went down, we launched our offensive.  Ben and I crept through our backyard in rain boots with flashlights, and I don't even want to say how many black widows, wolf spiders, and egg sacs we killed.  We also accidentally killed a cricket.  When he lept out at us we thought he was a black widow lunging for our jugulars, so we overkilled it.  I felt bad about this, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I brought Asher's bat and oar with me on the exploratory mission.

Asher did not understand the boots.  Harlan did not understand the oar.  Ben did not understand why he was being punished with a black widow infestation in his backyard.

Recon mission... where are you webbies.

Ben and Asher snuggling.

AMAZING sunset tonight.  It was a great way to kick off our massacre.

We were outside taking pictures of the sunset and Ben was armed with spider spray.  It took a lot of restraint for him to not start the killing spree before sun down.