Our 200 year old house came stocked with a healthy population of Pholcus Phalangioides, an arachnid commonly called the Long-Bodied Cellar Spider because of it’s lengthy legs and skinny thorax -- basically the giraffe of house spiders. The amusing thing about this insect is that when it’s poked it spins around in circles like a whirling dervish so fast you can’t see it anymore, it’s just a blur of a wheel. But otherwise it’s a peaceful little guy that builds webs in the corners of the ceiling. We hardly ever notice them.
Anyways, we co-existed with the spiders for years but eventually their webs became too much for us. Dust would get trapped and they’d hang heavy like gray cotton candy. Visitors accused of us of living in a haunted house and we saw their point. So last summer we decided it was time to take back our dwelling and I vacuumed the ceiling, evicting the spiders, home and all.
Then apple season came and went. The summer humidity went away and the stove fires sucked the remaining moisture out of the house. Then, as they do every December, red squirrels made their way in to test our cohabitation tolerance. They’d wake us up at night with all their running around and occasionally knock something off the counter. One morning I even discovered an entire bag of pistachio nuts emptied and presumably relocated somewhere in our walls. I can picture him now cracking the shells and watching Netflix on a tiny screen!
We’ve come to expect squirrels and mice to come in and establish winter dens but the noise only bothers us in December. Eventually, as the winter drags on their activity dies down and we can sleep again in peace. We’re pretty tolerant of this pattern but this January a new pest has come inside to claim this old house: Mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are ubiquitous in the summer and although they are annoying to humans we’ve evolved to tolerate them to an extent. But when they’re buzzing around in winter it’s something I can’t overlook. It’s only a small population we’re talking about (I get bit only once or twice a week), but still the peculiarity has made me obsesses on finding their source. I’ve flushed the P-traps under the sinks, checked the sump pump, and drained the dishwasher and washer machine basins. I’ve also quarantined the plants and went through all the cabinets looking for pots that might have standing water. Still, the mosquitoes buzz.
Then, just as I started pruning the apple trees it hit me like a flash: I’m noticing mosquitoes now because I removed all the spiders! I wanted a clean house so I removed the dusty webs but that action continues to reverberates throughout space and time, literally biting me in the ass.
Every branch cut from an apple tree in America causes a feather to fall from a bird in Australia. Then what happens next when that feather lands? And still, we plow forward. Cultivation.
