The Spider That Lives in the Mailbox

There's a spider living in the mailbox. It's been there for most of a year now. It's one of those black spiders with white fuzzy legs and a white spot on his back. I've always called them jumping spiders, but I don't know the correct name. We had them in the cabin on the coast when I was a child. If you try to swat at them they jump. Thus my name for them.

I like to think of the spider in the mailbox as a kind of sentry, guarding the mail. When you open the box, if it's close to the door, it'll spring to the back. Sometimes it's under the pile of mail, and it will jump crazily in the box, as if it has just been surprised from a dreamy sleep there beneath the letters, flyers and catalogs. It has a sort of cocoon-like web in the back end of the mailbox, so far back I couldn't reach the web without help from a stick or some other tool. But I see no reason to remove the web, or the spider. It doesn't bother anything. I don't see how it catches much in there, since the box is always closed, but maybe there's a way in and out that I don't know about. Maybe it just likes the darkness and warmth.

Apparently, Mark the postman has also decided not to bother the spider. I know he's bound to see it in there. It's not a tiny spider but is about the size of a nickel. And sometimes, when you open the box, it's right at the very front of the box, as if waiting for the door to open. It almost acts as if it wants to leap out  but it never does, not even when I pull out the mail. The next time Mark brings a package to the house door I think I'll ask him about the spider. I suspect he's made the same decision I have about leaving the spider be -- although, being a rural mail carrier, a spider is probably the least thing Mark has seen living in a mailbox.

It has been an especially buggy spring. I know I've complained about it in an earlier post so I won't do that again. However, the situation has been much improved since I sprayed the entire yard. It took four bottles of Spectracide. I like the kind that has the hose-end connection, makes it easier -- no mixing or temperamental sprayer to bother with. You just screw on the bottle and you're ready to spray. As I sprayed I saw a gazillion tiny grasshoppers leaping. I'm glad I got them before they grew and ate up the plants in the garden. I tried to avoid any butterflies, but I'm sure a couple got in the way of the spray. Can't be selective. I worked early while it was still cool, over a period of three mornings. It takes a while to spray an acre and a half, which is as far as the garden hoses will reach. The front two acres I left to harbor as many bugs, butterflies, grasshoppers as it wants. The Front Forty. The North Forty. The Pasture. We call that part of this place by all of those names.

As I sprayed, I never saw any bees but I'm certain we have them here. I guess we're lucky. They say the bees are disappearing, and I know that's true. When my ex and I had our nursery, in the mid-1980s, bees were everywhere. Millions of them. A nursery is by its nature a wet place. The watering systems are the blood and life-force of a nursery, and because of this, a gravel base is a must in a nursery, otherwise you would be slogging through mud all day long as you work. This base of wet gravel was apparently heaven for a honey bee. They would hover by the thousands, buzzing over the wet, gathering the moisture to help make their nectar. Once I walked through a particularly puddley, gravelly spot in my flip flops and flipped a hovering bee between my foot and the sole of my flops. I killed the little fellow, but not before he stung the fire out of the soft skin between my toes. It taught me to be more careful walking through the bees' heaven. I also found a better pair of shoes to wear as I worked. Our nearest neighbor, the beekeeper, always kept us in the honey he said by rights was half ours anyway.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Daddy. Afterwards, we walked through his vegetable garden. He showed me how he pollinates his cucumbers, since he has no bees to do the work. He plucked an almost wilted flower, and touched the center of the flower to each of the other flowers on his three vines. Since Daddy works in raised planters, all at chest level, I could plainly see each of the tiny cucumbers behind some of the dead flowers. When I got home I was fully prepared to likewise pollinate my cuke blooms. But lo and behold, there were already teeny little cucumbers behind the wilted flowers on my vines. This is the reason I believe in the bees. I admit that I haven't seen many this year. One year, when it was as dry as it has been this year, we had hundreds of bees in and around the hot tub. There have been no hot-tubbin' bees this year, but they have been at work when I wasn't looking, pollinating my cucumber blooms. Thank you very much, bees.

Onward ....