The photo you are looking at is to the best of my knowledge a brown recluse spider.

I will spare you a description of the shrieking hysteria that ensued when it climbed out of my boots – just as I was about to step into them. I considered calling the fire department, but my husband frowns on that sort of thing. So after I could breathe again I just watched it for a while, wondering where the rest of its family was. I thought, “No one will believe me that this thing was the size of a small kitten, I better take a picture.” Admittedly it would have to be a small kitten that had been put through the dryer several times, but none the less rather horrifying not to mention deadly. We have other things around the house that I am not especially fond of either, slugs and wasps to name a couple. In the old days I would have tromped straight down to the hardware store and bought some kind of bug bomb for the inside, designed to annihilate anything that had more than two legs, then spent the next week wiping down the entire house and checking myself daily to see if I was growing any lumps or extra appendages; And as for the outside pests – no mercy there either. But with the growing evidence that, “What goes around comes around,” when it comes to chemicals, I’ve softened my approach, a lot. I have short two leggers running about the house and yard these days, and I don’t want anything that’s going to give them neurological, liver, or any other kind of damage or problems. So, when I went out to look at my dahlias this morning, and they were nothing but slug chewed stumps I decided to look into some safe deterrents.

I found that there are so many options for natural pest control I wondered why in the world I would ever have used caustic chemicals.

For the slugs, I like the beer trap the best, seems like they should enjoy their weekend too before expiring.

The wasps are as beneficial as they are slow, so I am not going to kill them at all. I will hang a fake nest that looks something like a Chinese lantern so that they will think the neighborhood has gone downhill or gotten too crowded, or both, and move a to a more distant location. Like say, next door.

But, the one I am most excited about is peppermint! Apparently spiders hate it, and I happen to have no less than four varieties tucked in and about my tiny yard, so I will be designing some inside pots and making peppermint essential oil as well.  It’s amazingly easy and has tons of beneficial properties and uses, in addition to fending off spiders.

Here are some links in case you would like to join me in the reduction and redistribution of some of our less desirable guests.

How to make peppermint essential oil

Natural pest control

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