Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Down here you want to ride in the woods in the summer - it's too hot when the sun is directly overhead in the summer. From about Aug through mid Sept the banana spiders (some wolf spiders also but mostly banana) build their nest across the trails - probably a good place to catch flying insects. There webs are really sticky. The females are carrying eggs at that time of the year on the end of their bodies and the eggs are a bright yellow in color.  They look like a small banana. But you can't miss them - come around a corner and bang you are eye-ball-to-eye ball with them. I always carry a crop so I can at least cut one end of the web before I go blasting through and have one on the end of my nose.

If I see them in time, I'll duck so I don't distrube the web and let the person behind me worry about it. I've had them on my neck, shoulder, hanging off my helmet in my face, on my horse, etc. and never been bitten. The next morning there will be a web back up across the trail - within feet of the last one. By mid Oct. they are usually gone. But it sure can be exciting to ride with the spiders.

I'd much rather ride with the spiders than come around a turn and have a wild turkey fly up in my face or after the other day come around a turn and have a rogue inflated car intertube in the trail - talk about horse killers and taking flight ;-).

Truman

Laurie Underwood wrote:

Apparently there are advantages to riding the slower horse!

 

Laurie Underwood

 

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"The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity.

  For this reason, he has integrity. The person of inferior integrity

  never loses sight of his integrity.  For this reason, he lacks integrity."