Spiders and Forsythia

Okay. We are at war! Yesterday I picked up a strange plastic tube in the garage, and luckily spotted the black widow spider on it before it bit me. Last night I found a tick on myself in a totally unacceptable place. Today I picked up a metal folding chair in the yard and fortunately looked at it before I grabbed the seat to carry it off. OMG, there was the biggest, shiniest black widow spider I have ever in my life seen. Look at this sucker:

Finger for scale

Its hiding spot.

Now, I'm not all that hip on a lot of chemicals in the yard, but I'm about ready to put a bubble over the house and the yard and bomb the whole place with insecticide.

On a lighter note, I finally finished bushwhacking out the forsythia-gone-wild at the corner of the garage, and the neighbor kindly used the scoop on his tractor to dig the huge stump out. Here's a shot of the bush yet to be taken to the burn pile and the nice spot left after Larry dug the stump out.  Thank you, Larry! Can you believe the amount of bush from what started out as one forsythia? I have a lovely lilac bush to put in its place.