It's a Bugs Life After All ...

Oh Lord ...

I have to say that I have never,

ever,

seen as many bugs and creepy, crawly things

as I have seen since moving to Southern California.

Upon setting foot in the yard of our house

the evening we arrived  here in Long Beach...

Patrick looked down and saw a snake.

OK,  just a garden snake, but a snake none the less.

Ewww ... 

I yelled and Morgan jumped,

we ran for the door and found safety in the house.

Maybe that little snake was the neighborhood welcoming committee.

Thankfully, we have not seen a snake since that evening.

We quickly found out however that our home was infested with 

creatures of every other kind.

Spiders,

loads and loads of spiders.

Not just little ones, but big, huge spiders.

Just the other evening I went out to the back patio with the dogs,

I looked down and saw a web near the bottom of the house.

Then I saw "IT" ...

the owner of the web.

She was black and on her belly she had a big red spot.

WHAT ... a black widow in my yard at my feet.

Thank God for hard bottomed shoes,

I stepped on her ... over and over again,

even though I knew she was dead, I just had to make sure.

Whew, one less spider to worry about, but not the 1st Black Widow we have seen here.

Then there are the Lizards!

Every size ... and they are fast little buggers.

I watch them safely from inside the family room while they run up and down the brick wall

between our house and the neighbors.

I don't mind them because I hear they eat bugs,

but I don't want them in my house.  Morgan found a baby lizard in her shower one morning,

and very bravely killed that little sucker.

I sure wish they'd eat all those ugly Black Widow spiders.

Centipedes ... Crickets ... Cockroaches

all those "C" bugs.

Where the heck do they come from, and why are there so many of them here?

Cockroaches,  I've never had them in my house in my life, 

 ummm .. until I moved here. 

 I called an exterminator immediately when we figured out what they were.                                            I said "can you get here in half an hour" ... "nope, but I can be there tomorrow" ... "you mean I have to sleep in this house with those bugs here".  We survived the night, not without nightmares though.

The exterminator came out right on time ...

he says to me,                                                                                                         "it's not your house, it's plenty clean, these roaches come up through the drains".

Uggg ... does that mean I might see them again?

Well ... maybe, but probably not for a year or so ... of course it's been a year,

so I guess it's time to spray again.

We literally live right across the street from the river bed, granted it's a cement river bed, but every single strange creature that could exist, does exist in that river bed.

It isn't a very big hike for them to cross the street.

Skunks, Coyotes, Squirrels, Snakes, Rats, Mice, Possums and Bugs                             (including roaches and spiders)                                                                                   and the list goes on and on.

No one told me about the bugs ...

I still would have moved here, but man, I would have thought twice about living near a river bed.

This might explain by the way why I don't go camping,

Bugs and Tania ... we don't mix well.