September | 2013 | Mama Cormier

…..99 emails to go

I thought when I went to Ireland I would have trouble keeping up with my emails from my fellow bloggers that I faithfully follow. I did fall behind reading posts in my Reader but I managed to enjoy the posts that come directly to my email.

The problem of staying up to date happened when I went to the cottage. As some of you know I don’t have electricity let alone internet access up there. When I was away for more than a weekend I would write articles, save them and then post them once I came home. Towards the end of the summer I discovered that the library in the village had free WiFi so I went there a couple of times to post some of my writing.

Last week I returned home to open my classroom. I spent three full days at school cleaning up other people’s rooms, and trying to put books back onto the shelves in the library. On Friday I went back to the cottage for the last weekend of my summer holiday and returned Sunday. This morning when I opened my emails I had 99 unread posts.

Should I just delete them and start fresh when new ones come in or do I read 10 or more of the old ones a day plus the new ones that come in? Sometimes I look for the posts that I know are photographs or art work with very little text and I open them first. It’s the longer posts that I’m having trouble getting to. I know first hand how disappointing it is when you pour your heart and soul into your writing and no one reads it. What would you do? Am I making a problem where no problem exists? Help me with my conundrum, PLEASE!

….black widow spiders on Christian Island

If I hadn’t seen it for myself I wouldn’t have believed it.

Last week my neighbour at the cottage told me that we had to worry about black widow spiders. At first I didn’t believe her but then I saw the sign that was posted at the library in the village. Apparently they are very dangerous and if you get bitten you have to get to the hospital immediately because the venom can be deadly.

I’m not surprised that the spider has made its way to Canada in shipments of fruits and vegetables from the southern states but I am surprised that they can survive our cold and often harsh winters. It is especially cold on Christian Island in January and February and it would have been the last place that I would expect to find them.

Well last week DM came running up to my cottage to tell me that her brother came across one of these spiders while rummaging through one of his computer boxes in the loft of their cottage. He quickly took the box outside and the spider disappeared under their deck.

I can’t remember if it was the same day or the next but DM came running up to the cottage again, this time wrapped in a towel. Apparently there was another one in the outdoor shower. I went to investigate. Of course I took my camera with me.

Sure enough there was a ‘large’ spider crawling up the inside wall of the shower. DM and her brother were unsure what to do with this massive creature and they certainly didn’t want to squash it. I suggested that they find the insect spray or wasp killer while I took some photographs.

What amazed me was how this thing hissed at me when I came close with my camera. Every time I moved in closer with the camera it literally scurried behind a beam and then reappeared seconds later. The bug spray was useless but the wasp killer did the trick. Well at least we think it did. It curled up and fell to the ground between the wooden slats of the shower stall. I felt badly about killing the spider but I certainly didn’t want to be at the receiving end of its bite.

Later on we found out that it’s really only the females that are dangerous and the one I took pictures of was probably a male. We reported the sighting to the band council and they made a note of the location.

What next? First it was confirmed sightings of 3 black bears and now black widow spiders. One more thing to watch out for.