Wildlife

Mullica Hill lacks people, yet is over abundant in wildlife. In the last two years, I have encountered a fox in the parking lot, several deer walking between our parking lot and the lot next to us, a box turtle with only 3 legs (that Rachel would not let me keep), several feral cats (no surprise there), a hickory horned devil caterpillar, and an orb spider with a spider web the size of my car. I have been lucky to only encounter one snake, though it slithered over my foot (which is why I no longer wear flip flops to take out the trash).

In the last week, I have encountered my fair share of wildlife that has made me second guess my decision to stay in the farm lands of New Jersey. Last week, I went downstairs to finally do laundry in my own building. On my way back up the stairs, I alarmed a rather large bat like creature. Honestly, I thought it was a bat. It was flipping out and had me cornered on the porch, as it fluttered its wings trying to find a safe place to land. When it finally did land, I was quite surprised to find it wasn't a bat at all. It was a moth...the size of my hand. As soon as it landed, I slowly went inside to get Rachel, because I am not the only person that needs to encounter such a rare specimen. By the time we came outside, the moth had flown away to safety, not giving me the opportunity to take a picture of the bad boy before fleeing. After doing tons of internet research, I finally learned that the moth was a giant silk moth.

Giant Silk Spider

Comb Clawed Spider

Tuesdays mark trash night, which I haven't done in quite some time. Since I was determined to actually take out the trash this week (since nobody did it last week), I cleaned out the garage at the same time. There has been tons of stuff piling up in the garage since we moved in, and in the next week or so I have to bring home the remainder of my school stuff since I won't officially have a classroom and would rather not junk up a community classroom with my stuff. The first thing that went were the numerous spider nests near the door of the garage. The comb clawed spider have been a regular neighbor around here, at first their large bodies and scrawny legs were quite creepy, yet in the last year I have found them actually interesting to watch. There were several on our porch this spring, that I didn't disturb since they were making a buffet out of the stink bugs in the area. I didn't get rid of their nests until they started to lay egg sacks above the outside door and outside windows. I don't mind a few spiders having a buffet, but draw the line when they invite their friends and family to move into town. It was like low income housing for spiders out there.

After dispatching several nests and removing tons of broken crates, a set of Rubbermaid drawers that had become warped from the heat, math binders that had become infested with stink bugs and spiders (from the last move from school) and several other pieces of trash, I noticed not one, but two baby garner snakes slithering out of the garage. Apparently they had either tried to move in during my cleaning, or decided to move out before I had found them. I'm not completely sure how the hell they got in there, but I was not happy. In fact, I almost threw up due to my insane fear of snakes. 

After the snakes were gone (they slithered into the wooded area to keep the foxes, deer, possums, raccoon, and other mammal wildlife company) I reentered the garage to put several more items into place. During this time, I noticed a large, wasp like creature trying to carry a brown, fuzzy spider that was three times its size away. The spider was missing two legs and was already dead, but nevertheless, it still was creepy. I did what any sane person would do, I quickly emptied out a small container, and used the lid to slip the creature into the container. 

Wolf Spider...ew

After doing lots of research on the computer this evening, I have come to the conclusion that the spider was a rather large wolf spider. Wolf spiders are creepy in themselves due to their sheer size, but when you add in the fact that they are covered in fur and resemble a small tarantula they are quite unbearable. Rachel will probably have nightmares after I show her the dead spider (which is now residing on the porch in a smaller container). I'm pretty sure the spider was dead when I found it, though I wouldn't be surprised to find it crawling in the container when I go outside later.

I have seen several wolf spiders since moving to Mullica Hill, though none have been this large. Luckily they aren't poisonous, but they do have rather large fangs, which could probably cause a very painful bite.

In addition to the wolf spider, snakes, and comb clawed spiders, I also had to remove two huge worms that were the size of a fresh pencil and as thick as my little finger. They wiggled themselves into the garage just as I had turned around to leave. In fact, I almost stepped on one of them, which resulted in flipping out and attacking it with my shovel. As soon as I scooped the worm and flung him into the parking lot, I noticed another one trying to make its way into the garage. 

Needless to say...I hate Mullica Hill.

Pentatomoidea

About a year ago, the state of New Jersey became infested with Pentatomoidea, better known as the stink bug. These tiny little fuck-tarts have glands in their thorax which produces a foul smelling liquid to deter potential predators or when they are handled carelessly. The myth that stink bugs stink when you squished them is actually wrong. The fuck-tarts release their foul smelling liquid moments before they are squished, when they realize that their puny internal organs are about to squeeze out of their eye sockets.

During the fall, our apartment building became infested with stink bugs. The fuck-tarts were everywhere. At first, Gerald thought stink bugs were fun and he would go chasing after them and smacking them across the apartment. The problem was, that the fuck-tarts released their stinky butt juices in the apartment, leaving a foul, musky, rotting fruit smell that was quite nauseating to walk into. As quickly as I was flushing them down the toilet, another ten would appear from thin air to replace their fallen comrade.

War was declared between the Human Inhabitants and the Stink Bugs. I should define Human Inhabitants as solely my responsibility to rid our habitat of the rancid ass-turds, since Rachel squirmed and ran away from them with her arms flailing. After a week into battle, I quickly found the location of their entrance, they had laid eggs in our window. Hundreds of rancid bugs covered our window, sneaking into the apartment through a small crevice between the window and the exhaust fan in the window.

I took a large freezer bag and a Kleenex tissue (I sure as hell wasn't going to pick any of the fuck-tarts up with my bare hands) and began to grab the bugs from the window and place them into the bag. The bag quickly filled up with rancid creatures who began to excrete their foul smelling liquid onto each other. As I picked them off the window, about ten to twenty rancid ass-turds would dive bomb for my ankles, biting at my skin, leaving tiny little red pin pricks all over my legs. After collecting all accessible stink bugs, I closed the freezer bag up and threw into the trash can.

With the exception of a few Stink Bugs who found refuge inside our apartment, the war between Human Inhabitants and Stink Bugs appeared to be over...at least I thought it was over...

Over the last two weeks, I began to develop an itchy red rash on my legs, which consisted of several patches of tiny little red pin pricks. The patches only appeared from my knees to my ankles, and I couldn't figure out what the hell was causing it. I thought it was dry skin, so I bought new soap, in-shower moisturizer, and cocoa butter, but found no relief.

After several more days with no relief in sight, Rachel and I headed to bed. I nestled myself under the blankets and was moments away from sleep time, when I felt a strange sensation on my leg. At first, I thought it was Rachel's shoelace on my leg and began to debate the sanity of my fiancée since she wore her sneakers to bed. My internal debate was interrupted when the sensation began to move, and I jolted upright with the realization that something was crawling on my leg. I pulled the covers off and low and behold, a fucking fuck-tart was crawling on my leg. The little fungus had been making my legs a midnight snack for the last two weeks. There was a moment of direct eye contact between the two of us, and I think the little stinky beast even gave me the finger at one point.

Of course, he joined the rest of his fallen comrades, drowning in a whirlpool of toilet water. I seriously hope Raid makes a Stink Bug murdering spray before next fall so that I'm prepared for next years war. In the meantime, I'm going to take Rachel to a psychiatrist to find out why she's been wearing her sneakers to bed. Silly girl.