pretty wicked...

we find a lot of interesting creatures around our home...we're in the country, of course - & with the country, comes critters!

last weekend, the girls came inside & we like "you HAVE to come see this spider!!!" they're the real critter hunters...always finding "pets" & crazy bugs to investigate

so i go outside & they direct me to this...

now by that pic alone, you can kinda get an idea of the size of this thing...pretty wicked, huh?!

i love that my kiddos aren't scared of these things...we immediately went to Google (what in the world would i do without it?!?!) & searched for "yellow & black VA spider" & immediately found out what we were looking at...

i'm happy to have this critter around...keeping away those other pesky spiders that like to come in the house...moths, flies, mosquitoes, even bees! the crazy thing is that it says the female will lay over 1,000 eggs inside a papery sac...then die! the babies hatch in the fall, but stay inside the sac thru winter...God sure creates some amazing stuff!!!

i'd much rather have these around than copperheads...yes, yours truly had to kill her very first snake the other week - & it was only about 10ft from the house! Curtis has killed one so far this year too...we'd seen black snakes & garter snakes all summer...happy to have those around...but i hope these cooler temps keep the darn copperheads far, far away!

i can deal with just about anything...even spiders...but poisonous snakes scare the CRAP outta me! luckily, the kiddos haven't come into contact with any yet...& they know to get the hell outta dodge if they do!

so...what are you scared of?