RIP Pippi Longstocking

Hello Lovelies,

I woke up this morning and the Pipster had shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the big web in the sky. Then, as if this day couldn’t get any worse, I got to work which looked like a crime scene so I spent the morning mopping up blood from in front of the shop. 

Pippi was a complicated Spiderbabe. She was feisty. She HATED to have her tank moved. Even if you were just moving it so you could open the lid to add food for her, she would glare at you (well, maybe not glare—despite having eight eyes, tarantulas are quite blind) but she would definitely show her displeasure. She was FLICKER. And by that, I mean anything she didn’t like she would use a back leg to flick off a cloud of hairs in protest. She did this so often her abdomen had a big ole bald spot. Yep, our baby had a bald bum.

Flicking hairs is a defence mechanism in the wild as the hairs are barbed and extremely irritating. Tarantulas will flick hairs at a predator to blind them and be able to escape. It is also worth knowing that itching power you used to be able to order for cheap from the back of comic books was probably ground tarantula hair. Because of this I always like to wear protective goggles and gloves when I dealt with her.

She was also lightning fast. There were many times that everyone else got fed but she had to wait because she was also a wall climber. She would climb up the sides of her tank and then sliiiiide down which really could have used a squeegee sound effect because it was hilarious. But because she was a potential escape artist if she was attempting to climb up, we daren’t take the lid off for fear she would do a runner. So, she often had to wait for her supper until she settled back on the ground like a sensible spider.

I thought she was gearing up for a moult. She did it last year about this time and she was showing many of the signs. She was sitting with her bum in the water dish (more than usual) and she was doing what Spiderman used to call “spider yoga” where they press their bodies into the corner of the tank and arch backwards to get their carapace ready to pop off when it was time. She was also eating less (normally she was a greedy gobbler) but that is also a sign of getting ready for a moult. I wasn’t too worried.

A few days ago, she went to her favourite place in the back of the tank. When she wasn’t climbing and sliding, she liked to scrunch herself up into the small gap between the wall of her tank and her hidey cup. She took after her mummy on this as I too like to see if I can fit in small places (and get stuck.)

On Friday I gave the tank a jostle and she flicked hard at me. Saturday I was loathe to disturb her but did a little tappity-tap on the wall beside her and she moved her leg as if to flick but very little hairs came off. I attributed this to the fact that she was a baldy-bum and there wasn’t much left to flick. Sunday night I did the tappity tap and she raised a leg in warning—like swatting you away or giving you the finger. Though with eight legs how do you know which is the middle finger one?

I looked in on her this morning at around seven and she didn’t move at all, with a tappity-tap or a quite severe jostle of the tank. Oh dear. Then I did the water test because she HATED to get water splashed on her (something that was difficult if you were trying to fill up her water dish while she was sitting in it. Still water=OK, but falling water was a big ole NOPE.) Nothing. So, sadly I knew she had passed on.

At that point it was raining, so I took her out and examined for signs of disease but there were none that I could find. Her abdomen was a little shrunken, but I took that as she hadn’t been eating as much in preparation for the moult. I wonder if what happened was this. Did she ask herself:

“Do I have enough energy to do a full moult at my age?”

“No, I don’t.”

The End.

She was between fourteen and fifteen years old (hard to place her age but we have looked after her for fourteen years and she was at least six months old when we brought her home) so that is a good old age to be, and it does become much harder to moult the older they get—they just don’t have the enormous energy it takes to complete this exhausting process.

It stopped raining about 8:30, so as the ground was soft, I decided to take her out and bury her in the front garden before work. She is out there with several of her spider sisters (and 2 brothers.)

So, this just leaves Christina Rossetti. She is the last Spiderbabe of the original eight. She is between nineteen and twenty years old (she was definitely an adult when we adopted her in 2008) and I thought she would go before Pippi or Frida (who died in January). Rossetti hasn’t moulted since 2017 and is so chilled out she is basically horizontal, so it is difficult to tell how much time she has left. It is hard because the death of every Spiderbabe severs a connection between me and my beloved Amazing Spiderman because our love of arachnids was one of the things that brought us together. But I will admit it has been very stressful trying to care for everyone on my own. You definitely needed a Captain to feed/water etc and a lookout to be sure they didn’t escape while you did it especially with Pippi.

 So, goodbye to our feisty redhead. Our beloved Pip.

 

Goodbye Frida Kahlo

 

Sadness has come to our house once again. Frida Kahlo our beautiful Mexican Flame Knee  tarantula has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the big web in the sky. She was approximately twelve years old, which is a good life. Not as long as some, but longer than others.

Normally adult tarantulas moult (shed their skin) about once a year. This act has made me anxious without the Amazing Spiderman. If someone is late, should I worry? I have no one to discuss these fears with. I don’t worry about Christina Rossetti because she hasn’t moulted since 2017 and seems to be OK with that. But Frida and Pippi used to be like clockwork, perhaps because they are so similar. Spiderman used to say they were cousins because Pippi is a Mexican Fireleg ( Brachypelma Boehmei) and Frida was a Mexican Flame Knee (Brachypelma Auratam). They used to both moult within a month of each other (usually in the summer.) After Spiderman died, they both missed their summer moult which left me in a state of panic. Had I done something wrong? But eventually they both moulted in the autumn of 2021. Pippi moulted again in October of last year, but Frida never did. I had been trying to watch her for signs, but she was not showing any.

One of the characteristics of Frida was she seemed to love to play hide and seek and scare her Mummy to pieces. Her favourite spot was crouching small in the back right corner of the tank by the heat mat, half buried in substrate behind her hidey cup. A quick glance into the tank would make you think she had some how escaped. But moving her tank out into the light caused her to leap out and flick her itchy hairs at you as if to say “Stop shaking the tank, I was fine until you bumbled in and started moving everything!” She was like Pippi in that regard. Pip has always been an irritated hair flicker.

Friday, I noticed that she had moved away from her favourite spot in the back corner and was out in the open. I was able to get a good look at her with the torch. Her skin was dull and her joints scabby. This is a very clear sign that a moult is imminent. I noticed she hadn’t eaten the crickets I had put in on Wednesday and so I carefully removed them (a necessary act because a moulting spider is incredible vulnerable—they are helpless and their new skin is soft. A cricket can easily nibble on them in their weakened state and they will bleed to death.) This job always makes me cry with frustration as I need Spiderman to help with this. Looking after the Spiderbabes is a two-person job. It really helps to have one person doing the job and the other as a lookout, so the spider doesn’t escape. But she was surprisingly chilled out. This might have been a clue that she was unwell, but I was so relieved she didn’t try to run up the side to the open lid like she did one other time, I just breathed a sigh of relief. Spiders who are about to moult are often very quiet and still and “not their usual lively selves” before a moult as they are conserving energy for the big day, so I wasn’t too worried. In hindsight, maybe I should have been.

I checked on her again Saturday and she was still out front and centre. There was no sign of laying down a soft blanket of a web to moult on, but if she was going to do it, she was in the correct place to do so as it had plenty of room. I still wasn’t worried, but I increased the moisture in the tank as higher humidity helps with a moult.

On Sunday, I looked in and realised that she was in the same position as she had been both Friday and Saturday. Not just “near the same place” but in EXACTLY the same place. Uh oh. I did the test of jostling her tank. Nothing. I poured water near her. Nothing. I poured water on her (an act previously which would have made her furious). No reaction. Normally you can tell a spider is dead because they go into the “death curl” with their legs tucked under their body. She really wasn’t curled up, no more than her favourite scrunched up position she used to do in the back of the tank.

By this time it was very late and there was nothing else I could do. I woke up early this morning and removed her from the tank and looked at her body for signs of disease, but I could see nothing. I went out to the garden before work and dug a little hole and buried her. She’s out there with Lily Rose, Blanche DuBois, Polychrome and Pirouette.

I am both saddened and relieved. Saddened because our mutual love of arachnids was one of the things that brought Spidergrrl and Spiderman together. Of the original eight of the Spiderbabes (Lily Rose, Blanche Dubois, Christina Rossetti, Pirouette, Polychrome, Tibia, Pippi Longstocking, and Frida Kahlo) only two remain. Pippi Longstocking who is approximately fourteen years old and Christina Rossetti who we have had for fifteen years and we believe was an adult when we rescued her so she might actually be eighteen or nineteen years old.  Relieved because I have struggled since I became a widow to care for them on my own. Spiderman was always the Captain and I was the lookout, now I have to be both Captain and lookout.

I have loved each and every Spiderbabe with all my heart, but I know when the last one leaves this earth, I will not seek replacements. As with everything in my life it is made more difficult having to do it all by myself, but like the rest of my life I will just continue to muddle on.

Rest in Peace my little eight-legger.

 

The Amazing Backwards Rossetti

Well friends....Rossetti has moulted.

Other spiders do a lot of preparation before hand to let you know a moult is coming.

But not Rossetti.

Other spiders stop eating and seem almost fearful of food so that you have to awkwardly fish a live cricket out of their tank because it is scaring your sweetums.

But not Rossetti.

Other spiders do "spider yoga" for several days where they stretch up against the glass to loosen their carapace.

But not Rossetti.

Other spiders lay a web mat down so they have a soft place to moult. When you see that happening you know they will "do their thang" in a couple of hours.

But not Rossetti.

Other spiders moult on a regular schedule at three months, then six months, then once a year when they reach adulthood.

But not Rossetti.

To be fair, some of that one is her species. She is a Chilean Rose and they don't always follow the once a year schedule.

It's been over three years since her last moult.

And we have no idea how old she is as she is a rescue and she hasn't followed the moulting schedule which helps you to determine the age of a spider.

We just woke up today and she had done it. Just like that. Boom.

Rossetti is our special needs spider.

She seems a bit dyspraxic (like dyslexic only with coordination and movement). As she is stalking her prey (and if you have ever seen a spider hunt, they really stalk like lions) she creeps toward the cricket and then.......pounces in the wrong direction!

Every time.

She also really hates plastic trees.

I mean *really* hates. I didn't even know spiders could have emotions like this. But hers are strong ones.

We put a small plastic tree in her tank. She worked for days to wrap it up in spider silk which pulled all the sticky-out branches flat. then she bulldozed the tree, carried to her hidey (which was like a hollowed out log) and spent two days shoving the tree under the log and then buried the ends of the tree in substrate so she didn't have to look at them. Not like she could really look at them because despite having eight eyes, tarantulas are virtually blind and rely on other senses like touch to get around.

But you know what I mean.

And for the last two years she has had a bit of web hanging off her butt like toilet paper on the bottom of your shoe.

Um...excuse me...you've got something...right there. No other side.....

But we love our little bundle of contradictions.

Well done Rossetti.

Southern Belles May Be Stronger Than You Think

Oh what a night.

Our lovely southern belle Brazilian white knee spider Blanche DuBois has been through the the wringer and has given us quite a fright.

It all started on Saturday. We had friends over for dinner and Blanche was just strutting her stuff and showing off for company. She was walking up and down (stopping occasionally to scratch her bum in an adorable way) and then she went to her water dish and had a big ole drink. She also was seen to be laying down a web mat and we thought, "Aha, she is preparing for a moult!"

Well yesterday at about 2:00 I observed her doing what we call "spider yoga" where the spider stretches their upper back (much like the cobra pose in yoga) to loosen their carapace. When a spider moults it does lots of stretches to make their carapace (back plate) pop off so they can easily pull out their new body from the old one--like pulling your arm out of a sleeve.

Here is where things went a bit pear shaped. A spider normally moults on its back. It is the best way to be able to loosen their carapace and then roll to the side to pull out of the old skin. At 4:30ish we noticed she had rolled awkwardly on her side no where near the web mat she had made.

We thought maybe she would roll from the awkward side pose to her back but she never did. This was potentially dangerous as legs under the bottom of her cannot flex enough to break the carapace. Normally a spider flips, does stretchy stretchy and then starts to pull out. The whole things can take several hours. But at this rate, in that position, she might struggle to get her carapace off at all and die.

We decided to skip Welsh class as she might need our help and I am so glad we did.

As she lay awkwardly on her side, at first her top legs were straight up in the air but as the hours passed they sank down limply and stayed there. At first we thought, "Great! She is finally moving her legs!" but then it seemed as if she had just let them collapse and curl up. Was it the death curl? By now she should be pumping her legs back and forth like pistons to pop off her carapace and she just wasn't.

Why had she not flipped to her back? Why had she not pumped her legs? Was she ill? Was she just too old and weak to flip all the way over? We inherited her 7 years ago and so she was around 12-13 years old. She had seemed fine on Saturday, unlike Lily Rose who looked frail in her old age, Blanche had looked robust. It was a puzzle.

Maybe she was too dry to split her old skin? So Spiderman added extra water to the tank to build up humidity and we moved the space heater closer to keep her warm. Spiderman dropped water from a pipette (dropper) on all her joints that we could reach  to try to lubricate them. She didn't react at all.

By midnight she had not moved at all and we thought she was dead. She seemed to be stuck in the moult--being greatly weakened and not able to push herself through it. Even if she did manage to get her carapace off if the joints were too dry she could lose multiple legs or tear her abdomen coming out and bleed to death.

She lay there awkwardly on her side half curled up and we thought she was dead. You can't tell. You can't check for breathing or a pulse because they don't function like that. It was agony.

We cried and did not know how to help her.  We talked about how and where we would bury her in the morning. We thought if she is not dead now, she will be soon. We felt helpless.

Exhausted, we climbed into bed and talked about all our favourite memories of her and then slept fitfully. This morning we woke and were both afraid to go and see. What if she had torn herself in half trying to get out? We went in and looked and she had done it. She had moulted. Her new body was still on its back --too weak to flip itself over. Her mouthparts were covered in bloody looking flux. She might have torn her oesophagus. She wasn't moving at all.

This was worse than last night. What if she had finally managed to moult only to die from the exhaustion of it? At first we thought she was missing 2 legs but it turned out she was just laying on them awkwardly.

Was she alive? Was she dead? We could not tell.  My throat felt sore from anxiety.

We waited. An hour later we noticed she had moved just a little bit. Was she alive? Then after another hour or so she had flipped herself back upright. She was alive.

But for how long? It was a very traumatic moult. We have never seen one like this. She might have internal damage. One of her legs looks a bit wonky so she might have some lameness.

All we know is she is a fighter. She is alive for now. We will continue to love her and treasure her no matter what, but this may be coming to the end of her life. Another moult will likely kill her.

I think it was so hard because we were there for it. Every excruciating step of the way. All of our other girls have "died in their sleep." We woke up and they were in the death curl. But to see one suffer and not be able to do anything to ease their suffering is heartbreaking. Her moult lasted over 10 hours. Most likely up to 15 hours. For her to be in pain and distress for that long must have been horrible.

Poor Blanche DuBois.  Do what you need to do, baby. If you need to slip away then we will miss you or gather your strength and live a bit more.

We love you darlin'.

Last of the Summer Wine

We had our annual Llansteffan Castle picnic a week or so ago. It’s called Last of the Summer Wine just because it is the last bit of warm summer before the cold and rains of autumn rear their heads. This picnic was one of the first outings we did with Carmarthen vegans last year and it was extra thrilling to be doing it again. We got to be firm members of the group, welcoming new people unlike last year when we were the newbies.

 

Also, after the hike in the Brecon Beacons where is was clear I needed more sturdy shoes a blessing occurred. I was all set to cough up the £45 I needed to buy a pair of waterproof hiking boots from Charlie’s when lo and behold my beloved discount German grocer Lidl had pairs on sale for £15. That’s right. I bought one, Spiderman bought one, I went and back and bought another pair for when the first ones wear out because I hate shoe shopping. I told all my vegan peeps and Kathryn, Peter and Susie bought some. So now we’re all twinkies (twins!)

 

Anyway, I had mine on for this walk and you might can catch a glimpse of them.

 It starts down below by the River Tywi estuary. This is the view from the car park where we wait for everyone to arrive.

 

There were many little friends out and about.

can you see his little eyestalks?

lots of little friends

 

 Then we all walked together up the steep road.

heigh ho, heigh ho! It's up the hill we go!

 

We saw at least one little eight legged friend on the way up.

can you see her hiding in her web?

 

An artistic view of the castle we were headed up to complete with spooky old gnarled tree.

 

Then we arrived at the top of the ruined castle. This is the view looking outward.

 

Then we all sat down in a circle and ate ourselves silly with delicious vegan food.

 

This is what the ruined castle looks like.

 

This is the view out to sea.

 

This is the view if you climb to the top of the ruined castle.

 

Or if you look through an arch.

 

Here is me by the old well holding the well key pretending to be the evil Dodge in the form of the dark lady from our favourite graphic novel Locke and Key by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez. I am putting on my evil face which Spiderman says is less effective due to the wee flower in my hair. Go figure.

 

scarier than me

 Here’s another little fuzzy friend found on the castle walls.

 

Not sure what was happening here. I was standing up to avoid sitting on the rocky wall but it somehow looks like I am the teacher and they are my pupils. However you do get a great view of my new teal and black hiking boots.

click to enlarge and admire my new boots

 Yes I go hiking in a dress. No I don't care if it looks dumb with hiking boots. Any other questions?

It was a little chilly, but we still had a blast. A new young lady called Rosie brought some watercolour pencils and some bristol board and we happily sketched the view together and chatted.

A big thanks to the Amazing Spiderman for all the lovely photography. Didn't he do a great job?

 

It was a lovely day and just goes to show you can make your own fun.

 

Good food, good friends, fresh air and exercise. What more do you really need?

RIP Lily Rose

As I mentioned in the last post, our beloved Lily Rose has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to that great web in the sky.

She was named after the John Singer Sargent painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

It has hit me particularly hard as she was our first. Not our actual first, Spiderman had Shirley when we met and later we had Charlotte, but our first in the UK. Our first “rescued” spider. Our first “second hand” spider. 

We weren’t looking. We didn’t plan it. It just happened. Spiderman was walking through town and saw a notice on a shop window. A Lasiodora Parahybana, the Salmon Pink Bird Eater, one of the three largest species in the world. They can grow to have a leg span in excess of 10 inches (25 cm) and so need larger space to live. There was a photo of her, all burgundy with pink highlights, and she was so beautiful. Just perfect.

We fell in head over heels love. How could you not? This lovely creature was so obviously one of God’s most beautiful and graceful handiworks.

We went in to enquire and she was being sold by a woman named Sue who was having financial trouble and needed to sell her as she could no longer take care of her.  She was heartbroken because she had raised her from a spiderling, when she was no bigger than your thumbnail and now was as big a as a man’s hand. We had to have her.

She was our first. She was our big girl. She was often everyone’s favourite due to her size and grace.

It just sort of snowballed from there. We picked up a few more rescued spiders when Sue could no longer afford to keep them and we picked up a few more new ones down the line. At one time we had eight. In the last few years we lost Pirouette and Tibia.

Now we have five.

I think maybe we secretly knew it was coming. She hasn’t been the same since the move. She had looked old and shrunken. It was like the tank dwarfed her--something that never happened before. She always has such…presence….I don’t know. She just seemed to “own” the space like a model “owns” the catwalk. Lately, she seemed lost.

She had stopped eating and her colour had dulled and darkened. Her knees had gone all scabby. These are all signs that a healthy spider is going to moult and then emerge from shedding her skin like a butterfly, bigger with new and glorious colours.

It never happened.

She was increasingly sitting in the corner on the heat mat looking frail. She wasn’t cruising the glass walls of her tank anymore or (thankfully) trying to hang upside down from the mesh roof and breaking a fang like she did one other time. Naughty girl. 

On Christmas eve we were giving all the girls the gift of an extra cricket and that’s when we found her.

Sitting still on her heat mat. Too still. We didn’t want it to be true.

She didn’t respond to drops of water or gentle blowing nor to a very gentle poke with a paintbrush.

She was gone.

And she ponged. So it probably had happened the night before and the heat mat had made the smell worse. Poor Lily Rose.

She was approximately fourteen years old and we had had her for over six years. That’s a good life for a spider.

But I am so sorry that it happened at Christmas.

We buried her on Christmas day in the soft earth under a thorny rose bush. We sang Jesus Loves Me as that is the law for pet funerals (at least in my family).

But it hurts. More than Tibia and Pirouette. Maybe because it was Christmas or maybe because she was so big and majestic. Maybe because she was the first.

Oh the lovely Lily Rose, we will miss you. Your tank will be cleaned and our second biggest Blanche Dubois (who has legs like Cyd Charisse) will move in. Will it ever feel like hers and not yours?

Probably. She needs the space. She will unfurl like a flag and we will be surprised at how big and beautiful she really is.

But she won’t be you.

Go in peace my big girl. We loved having you as part as our family.

A Charles Dickens Christmas

This was our first Christmas in Wales or Nadolig am Cymru, if you prefer. It was a bit of a Charles Dickens Christmas and by that I don’t mean we were visited by three ghosts and we changed our miserly ways after being shown the past, the present and the future.

No, I’m thinking more of A Tales of Two Cities, you know:

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

 

Yeah.

 The good:

We had a wonderful three days of celebrating from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day where we ate ourselves silly with all this amazing, delicious healthy cruelty free food. I have a new favourite vegetable--the parsnip. I love it so much I have composed a song in its honour. Seriously. More on that later.

 

The bad:

Our Lily Rose was found dead on Christmas Eve. She was our oldest spider--somewhere in the range of fourteen years old or so--and she was our first spider in the UK.  She was also our first second hand spider that we got from a lovely lady named Sue who could no longer care for her. Our first rescue. It just broke out hearts.

 

The happy:

Despite having to watch our pennies, we each had a pressie under the tree as well as a joint gift. Siôn Corn (Father Christmas, literally Chimney John) did not forget his little chickadees! Spiderman got a new key chain with a Welsh dragon as his old one had broken and I got a Welsh children’s songbook of traditional Welsh tunes that came with a CD, a book of chords so you can play along at home and (thankfully) a translation. I can now play three songs!!!! Go me! I’d also like to thank Tallulah who actually makes the music. I am only as good as my ukulele and she’s fabulous. Together we got the new CD by our favourite comedy blues band Jonny and the Baptists entitled the Satiric Verses from their Stop UKIP tour.

 

The sad:

We had to bury Lily Rose on Christmas day as she was beginning to stink. Sorry old girl. Thankfully, it had been raining (when does it ever bloody stop here????) so the ground was quite soft which was good as we don’t own any sort of digging apparatus.  My heart was very heavy. I am writing a full eulogy for her, but am finding it emotionally hard.

 

Despite the sadness of the loss of Lily Rose, we have had pockets of sunshine where we rushed out for errands, but mostly we just had lots of Duvet Days where we snuggled up on the sofa and watched DVDs or read books. 

 

Life is just like that--the good with the bad. The happy with the sad. So I guess our first Christmas in Cymru just wasn’t that bad after all. Together we can bear all things.