Creepy crawlies

I'm a daydreamer. One of my biggest daydreams of the past several years has been to move toward a more rural lifestyle. You know, chickens and maybe a goat in the backyard, a really big garden (like, enough to sell the extra at a roadside stand, or at least give it away), big canning parties at harvest time. Life away from the suburbs (but not TOO far from Costco).

But let's face it. I'm a wimp.

There is a really HUGE spider, or maybe more than one, that lives in the window well right next to my computer. It was stuck between screen and window for a few days, and I sat staring at it for minutes at a time. Revulsion? Horror? Yes. But could I open the window to kill it? No. Bruce's job. I shriek and run when a yellowjacket surprises me in the garden. In fact, I only weed before 9 a.m., partly because of the heat and partly because of the bees.

In reality, my imagination is just too good. Or my paranoia. Last week I went to pick apricots at a u-pick place nearby. Not too far from the parking lot where Dan saw a rattler last month (just after our kids had been tramping through the weeds, mind you). So snakes had been on my mind all day as I psyched myself up to go. Alone. Luckily there was a tough-looking guy in military gear picking apricots at the same time. I traipsed across the open field to where the best fruit was. Two minutes later, he was done and turned back. I was alone, picking fruit, on a hot and sunny afternoon. I heard a noise from about 50 feet east. Stop. Again. Stop. I'm not sure if it was a rattlesnake, but it was a distinct possibility. Then the same noise from 50 feet west. Stop. Again. I climbed up the ladder and tried to pick more fruit--the apricots were GREAT on this tree. A few more rattling noises, from both sides.

I left the tree. I traipsed back across the field (luckily, away from the unidentified noises). The owner of the trees said, "Is that all you got?" I made some excuse (remember, I had left the trees with the best fruit) and headed north, past the little house and garden, to some other trees with smaller fruit, not as ripe. I heard no rattling noises. I paid and went home, happy to be alive.

So how would I do on a farm? Maybe okay, if I had a gun on me at all times (and could keep my wits about me enough to aim at the snake). Maybe not. But even here in the suburbs, nature sometimes gets a little too creepy for me. For now, I'll keep getting my eggs and goat cheese from the store, and buy my fruit for canning from someone else's roadside stand.