The last 24 hours has been... interesting.

[Luminara]

I work Sunday and Monday mornings.  When I woke up yesterday (Sunday), it was raining.  Not a big deal, I've worked in the rain before, but it was also 48 degrees Fahrenheit, and I didn't have a fire going because it was almost 70 when I went to bed.  So the 48 degrees outside meant 48 degrees in the cabin.  Since the last three weeks have followed the pattern of being chilly in the early morning (early being 4 a.m. onward), I figured I'd tough it out and warm up later.  So I had my coffee, responded to posts and prepared to go to work.  Walked outside to start my bike at 7:45, remembered that I wanted to fill the tank and did that...

 

It wouldn't start.  A few months ago, I would've expected that.  I was riding a rat bike I built, and it wasn't the most reliable transportation (in fact, it died on the way to work at the end of August).  This bike is brand new, though.  Fresh off of the factory floor, first butt in the seat is mine, never been ridden anywhere by anyone else new, and it shouldn't have any problems.  In fact, in the three weeks I've been riding it, it hasn't.  So I was really worried, and more than a little annoyed, and it was raining.

 

I'm intelligent, though.  Or maybe I'm not, it could just be that I understand machines the way I understand animals, intuitively, and I'm actually a complete moron.  I wouldn't know if that were the case, and it wouldn't bother me.  Point being, I knew I could fix it, once I found the issue.  So I set about finding that issue.  I checked the hoses and wiring, made sure there wasn't anything obvious like a loose spark plug boot, and noticed that the drain for the carburetor bowl was easily accessible.  Hey, might as well spend the 15 seconds opening that.

 

No fuel.

 

What the fudge factory?  I just poured over a gallon of gasoline into the tank, and the tank was 1/3rd full before I did that.  Fuel should be streaming out of of the drain.

 

The fuel lines were good.  The vacuum lines were good.  The tank was free of detritus.  Finally decided the problem was the vacuum-operated fuel pump/petcock.  I'd read many complaints about them going bad on similar bikes, but I hadn't expected a problem to manifest this early in the bike's life.  I tried tapping it, I tried massaging the vacuum line, I tried massaging the fuel line, still no fuel going into the filter.  Then I remembered that I had an unused fuel line of the correct inner diameter, and long enough to reach outside of the housing.  Popped that in place, stuck the other end in my mouth and started pumping with my breath.  Create pressure, reverse pressure.  Gas rushed into the fuel filter.  I kept going for half a minute, to be sure the carb bowl would be filled, reattached the vacuum line to the petcock, stuck my foot on the kick starter and... it started on the second kick.

 

To boil it down, I had to do a suck and blow job to get a ride yesterday morning.  😧

 

This morning, I caught up on relevant posts and decided to play a bit, since I couldn't yesterday (didn't wake up until 5 a.m., and spent all of my time before work posting).  I'm sitting here on my love seat, walloping things with Cross Punch/Air Superiority/Sting of the Wasp on Antianeira, listening to the cats to the cats playing in the sink.

 

Oh, yeah, I installed a sink this past spring.  Still no running water, and the frame I built to hold the sink is... well, a bunch of scrap wood I had lying around, and it looks like scrap wood, but at least I don't have to wash dishes in a bucket now.

 

Then the cats started doing something next to the sink.  My mind connected dots.  They weren't interested in the water in the bowl and pot in the sink, or clinking the spoon in the bowl, there was something else drawing their attention.

 

I looked over at Jessica and May.

 

Huge fucking wolf spider.

 

Huge.

 

Body the size of my thumb.

 

Leg span as large as my palm.

 

H

 

U

 

G

 

E

 

.

 

Now, I respect spiders.  They're amazing, they really are.  They keep insect populations under control, and some of them are extraordinarily beautiful, like the banded garden spider.  That's actually my favorite spider, and one of my favorite living creatures, I love looking at them.

 

But big, hairy, creepy spiders... I had a 7 year old child moment.  It's a damn good thing I live in a forest, because, if I had neighbors, there'd be half of a police precinct outside, investigating what they thought to be a homicide in progress.

 

I grabbed Jessica and May, unceremoniously deposited them on the love seat, and found a small semi-opaque container to put over the monstrosity.  Found something to slide underneath, flipped it over and slammed a cover on the container.  Took it outside and convulsed as I was shaking the container out... that spider may have entered orbit.  I didn't mean to fling it that hard, I just couldn't control the spasm that rippled through me.

 

NOT A GOOD WAY TO START THE DAY.

 

It's not raining any more, the bike ran perfectly every time I started and rode it yesterday after the petcock problem was resolved, my wood stove is still putting out heat and the weather report indicates a high of 70.  Hopefully, today will be less... eventful.

[AboveTheChemist]

Glad you got the bike working again! Regarding the spider, twenty years or so ago I was hanging out with my ex-girlfriend and her family at her folks' house. I needed to shower and ended up using the quite seldom-used shower in their basement. I was washing my face/hair (thus my eyes were closed) and felt a tickle on my foot. When I rinsed enough to be able to open my eyes I looked down and saw a wolf spider of equal proportion to the one you saw, perched atop my foot. It had apparently crawled up out of the drain. I am not overly bothered by spiders so I didn't freak out too badly. Still, it's a particularly vivid and not overly pleasant memory. I won't go into details but it ended up going back down the drain from whence it originated.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, AboveTheChemist said:

Glad you got the bike working again! Regarding the spider, twenty years or so ago I was hanging out with my ex-girlfriend and her family at her folks' house. I needed to shower and ended up using the quite seldom-used shower in their basement. I was washing my face/hair (thus my eyes were closed) and felt a tickle on my foot. When I rinsed enough to be able to open my eyes I looked down and saw a wolf spider of equal proportion to the one you saw, perched atop my foot. It had apparently crawled up out of the drain. I am not overly bothered by spiders so I didn't freak out too badly. Still, it's a particularly vivid and not overly pleasant memory. I won't go into details but it ended up going back down the drain from whence it originated.

 

I would've been running through the house, screaming and naked.

Okay, I might occasionally do that anyway, but still...

[CrudeVileTerror]

WARNING!   Post contains picture of spider.

Use this link to skip past it:   https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23463-the-last-24-hours-has-been-interesting/?tab=comments#comment-281026

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worst I've ever had to contend with was about this big.  Came up out of the sink drain in the bathroom of my grandma's summer cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post ends here.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by CrudeVileTerror
Added link to skip post.

[CrudeVileTerror]

This post does not contain a picture of a spider.   It exists to skip the post above.

[Luminara]

The world needs more spiders like the Argiope genus (banded garden spiders).  Fewer tarantulas and wolf spiders.

 

I could do with an outhouse, if the world is taking requests...

[Six-Six]

Haha!

I remember a beach trip back in my youth. The place where we stayed was an old old house. The kitchen was separated from the main house. And they had an outhouse that has since been upgraded with indoor plumbing, but remained in all it's quaintness, an outhouse. Electricity was not from the main grid as well... anyhoo, cut to the time I needed to go to the loo in the middle of the night. Took a short stroll to the out house, Electricity has been cut from the entire compound except the bedrooms where people slept with fans. But the moon was bright enough. Went in, shut the door, did my thing. Now to clean up, I decided to flick my lighter so I don't blindly fumble about. When I did, I found that all the corners of the tiny outhouse (floors and ceiling) was jam-packed with big-as-my-hand spiders. I'm not one to scare easily, but that was stuff to give others nightmares for decades. 

[Coyotedancer]

Wolf spiders *look* scary, but they actually make pretty useful housemates... If you let it stick around, you won't have to worry about anything ELSE crawly being in the house, including other spiders. Plus, as active hunters they don't leave cobwebs all over the place.

 

In the world of bugs, that spider is basically the miniature, eight-legged version of a tiger. They're territorial, so in a relatively small space you'll never have more than one, they're pretty much fearless (I watched one of my resident wolfies stalk and kill a hornet that had gotten into the house a few summers ago. This was a smaller male... the females are the really big ones... so the hornet outmassed him by a fair bit, but Spidey still won that fight handily.) and unless you try to grab them they're unlikely to try to bite you. 

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Wolf spiders *look* scary, but they actually make pretty useful housemates...

 

Yeah, I know they're good spiders.  As I said, I respect them.

 

I just don't want to sleep with them when they're the size of a turtle.  Good housemates don't intrude on one another's personal space.

 

Furry cats in my home - GOOD!

 

Furry spiders large enough to give me the willies - NOPE!

 

No scritches for them.  They go outside, where they belong.

[Techwright]

I'm surprised the cats didn't lunch on the spider.  I can't keep cats because of severe allergies, but I watched one of my sister's cats just devour a spider crossing the carpet.  As I'm also severely arachnophobic, Taffy became my new favorite cat.

 

Also, my favorite comics are ones with Garfield hitting spiders with newspapers... especially the ones that get in a repeat shot. 

 

On 10/27/2020 at 11:48 AM, Coyotedancer said:

Wolf spiders *look* scary, but they actually make pretty useful housemates... If you let it stick around, you won't have to worry about anything ELSE crawly being in the house, including other spiders. Plus, as active hunters they don't leave cobwebs all over the place.

Thanks, but if I need live indoor creepy crawly control, I'll get a couple of geckos.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Techwright said:

I'm surprised the cats didn't lunch on the spider.

 

Jessica is very intelligent, and easily spooked, so she's cautious about spiders.  She doesn't display the same ferocity with spiders as she does harmless insects, and as far as I've been able to tell, she hasn't eaten one yet.  Usually, if it moves, it's going down the gullet.  May... she's still so young, she doesn't know what to do with bugs, including spiders.  She stands back and watches her foster big sister deal with crawly things.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I was visiting family in Hawaii, and one night I was reading in bed.  As I reached over to turn off the light I caught a scurrying movement on my chest out of the corner of my eye.  Knew instantly what it was, and leapt out of bed to grab the nearest shoe.  The 8-inch centipede ran under the bed and I couldn't find it after looking for about ten minutes.  Slept in the other room on a couch with a shoe in my hand.  I hate those bastards.

[Luminara]

25 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

The 8-inch centipede

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by Luminara