Porch cleaning - September 7, 2025

It all started when The Husband noticed a dead mouse in the trap on the back porch, in the corner where my worktable sits.

To get to the trap, we had to move the table, the stool where I pile stuff when I run out of room on the table, and a fan, and when we moved all of this stuff, I saw spider webs glinting in the light.

If there is anything I hate worse than a mouse, it's a spider.  

I vacuumed the corner from ceiling to floor.  This ignited a porch-wide cleaning frenzy and "throwing-away party" that lasted nearly three hours.  We over-turned furniture to get at all the spiders and webs and egg sacs.  Dusty throw pillows went into the washing machine.  There is no longer a dead ladybug or stinkbug anywhere in sight.  It's so nice to have a clean porch.

We did not over-turn my worktable, which I believe, based on evidence, harbors a monstrously large and wily spider.  Turning the table over would require taking all the stuff off the top and putting it all back.  I ran out of steam and didn't do it.

Here is the evidence:

See all those white flecks on the floor?  This is not paint.  I'm pretty sure it's spider shit.  Whenever I move the table a little bit, a new splatter appears.  It cannot be swept away, wiped away, or vacuumed off.  It takes a scrub brush and some elbow grease to get it off.  I believe the spider is one of those furry jumping spiders, as I have seen one on/around my worktable but have never been quick enough to kill it.  I've actively hunted for it, but there are so many places for it to hide among the dark network of legs and brackets and braces, and there's no way to check all of those places without turning the table upside-down.   

So, for now, the spider lives on.

* * * * * * * * 

In a little while, I am going up to the community garden.  The squash had a touch of mildew last week.  There's a sprinkler nearby that may be causing the problem; it needs to be turned off, now that it's not so hot and dry.  

Mushrooms were sprouting in the wood chips covering the squash plot.  This gave me an idea.  I have a bag of winecap mushroom spores that I intended to put in our home vegetable garden but never got around to it.  They might not be viable anymore, but I may scatter them in the squash plot and cover them with wood chips and see what happens.  The food bank might not take mushroooms.  If they don't, I'll bring them home.