LarrBeard
09-22-2020, 07:24 AM
SPIDER POOP!
In the summertime I don’t keep a cover over the truck because if I want to make a quick run here or there I don’t want to have to wrestle off a cover, fold it up, stash it away and then repeat the process after the truck cools down.
Last week I was giving it a dust down – farmers always find ways to raise dust out here in the country – and there were little white speckles on the hood. It wasn’t dust – it wasn’t bug remains, what in the heck was it?
Then I looked up in the rafters over the truck and several spiders had set up housekeeping there. They were the big fat brown and black critters with leg span about the size of a quarter, and from the wrapped up fly carcasses in their webs, it looked like they were eating well.
Now, spider poop is very corrosive; any critter that eats its own poison is dangerous at both ends. The speckles wiped off the clear coat easily, but I know from experience that spider poop can damage paint or unprotected metal long term.
I backed the truck out, hit the spider colony with Yard Guard and watched them spin safety webs as they dropped to the garage floor. They didn’t make it far before they couldn’t figure out just which leg needed to go in front of the next one. Problem solved – but just one more hazard we never think about.
In the summertime I don’t keep a cover over the truck because if I want to make a quick run here or there I don’t want to have to wrestle off a cover, fold it up, stash it away and then repeat the process after the truck cools down.
Last week I was giving it a dust down – farmers always find ways to raise dust out here in the country – and there were little white speckles on the hood. It wasn’t dust – it wasn’t bug remains, what in the heck was it?
Then I looked up in the rafters over the truck and several spiders had set up housekeeping there. They were the big fat brown and black critters with leg span about the size of a quarter, and from the wrapped up fly carcasses in their webs, it looked like they were eating well.
Now, spider poop is very corrosive; any critter that eats its own poison is dangerous at both ends. The speckles wiped off the clear coat easily, but I know from experience that spider poop can damage paint or unprotected metal long term.
I backed the truck out, hit the spider colony with Yard Guard and watched them spin safety webs as they dropped to the garage floor. They didn’t make it far before they couldn’t figure out just which leg needed to go in front of the next one. Problem solved – but just one more hazard we never think about.