Flowers, Fire, and cool evening weather

Flowers are looking nice by the pool here at Bill's TN Paradise.

What an amazingly cool night for mid-July. It's expected to get in the mid 50's tonight. Glad the pool is heated.

It's a nice night to light the patio fireplace.

Also a nice night to run. I pounded out 2 miles at 6:40 pace tonight. Fastest I've run in a while.

Wolf spiders - they definitely bite

The wolf spider is very common spider around TN. Bill learned first hand today that they give a painful bite.

I reached into the strainer basket of my pool today to clear out the debris - mostly seeds dropped from the trees. On my left thumb, I felt a sudden wicked sting, I was certain that I'd been stung by a red wasp. But no, I looked into the basket and there he was, the little bastard - a wolf spider, just a bit bigger than a silver dollar (leg span). He paid the ultimate sacrifice for his misgiving. The bite was no big deal. It stopped hurting after a few minutes, but the thumb swelled and now after an hour, the swelling isn't so bad. It's almost back to normal.

Wolf spiders don't spin webs like other spiders. They are carnivores and hunt for their prey using speed and venom. I've observed a few times in the spring, females carrying what seems like dozens of tiny spiders on their bodies. These spiders can be controlled effectively with chemical sprays.

This spider bite was was nothing compared to a yellow jacket attack I had a few years ago. I was mowing my lawn and several bees came out of the ground and attacked. I was bitten several times in rapid succession as I fled the area. It happened so fast, I never saw them. I actually felt a slight fever and a slight tightness in my chest an hour after that attack. That was amazing. I didn't want to suffer another attack so I later I returned to kill the nest.

UPDATE:
After maintaining this blog for 7+ years, among the thousands of posts, THIS post on the wolf spider is the single most visited blog post in the history of this blog.   It has been accessed 10s of thousands of times.  Why is it people are so interested and fascinated with this creature?

Pool opens - summer starts

It's not officially summer yet, but for me it is! The regular academic year ends this week at MTSU and my pool is open and heated... so that means summer vacation here at Bill's TN Paradise!

MTSU had their yearly plant sale and I stocked up with annuals: impatiens, begonias, ferns and other tropicals. Plus, I put out all my tropicals for the season, assuming that it's a good bet we won't see another frost.

Not only are the plants great looking, they also provide a screen giving the pool complete privacy. (Much of the time when it's hot, I can't be troubled to wear much clothing).

Heating the pool has become much less expensive with the electric heat pump as opposed to the old propane heater. I keep the pool around 87 F, and it costs only about $50-75 a month with the electric heater. It was 3 times that with propane heater or more.

All things are back to normal at Bill's TN Paradise after the electricians put back my main electrical service that was knocked down by a falling branch (insurance claim) ... and, I fixed a leak in my hot tub by gluing a complex series of PVC connections. Whew, that saved a $250 service call.

Looking forward to getting my tomato garden started. I ordered several of these "giant tree tomato" plants. They're supposed to grow 8 feet in 3 months. We'll see if they pan out.

Happy spring and happy summer vacation!!!!