Tiny Scorpion and Five-Cent Euro

It's a wee one. The euro is 2.2 cm in diameter.

Scorpion #3 2011, in Absentia

No photo of #3; just this note to record the event for all posterity. In bed last night, with a cold pack on my hot feet, I felt something whispery on my ankle and somehow I knew, in the way that one knows such things, that I wanted to get up very quickly. I did, and there was a rather large scorpion running away from where my ankle had been.

Did he fall from the loft above, or had he been inside the dish towel I'd taken from the drawer to wrap around the cold pack? Only the Scorpion knows . . .

I do feel this supports my argument that they don't sting just for the hell of it, just because one's ankle or whatever is there. It was just using my ankle to walk on, and the ankle was not threatening it, so no sting.

Scorpion #1, 2011 (and #2 in Absentia)

From May 2 in the bathroom. A few days later another showed up in the same place; one of its pincer arms was dragging behind it, poor thing. I took it out outside without making it suffer through a photo shoot.

Tiny Scorpion II

The close-up of the weird red-orange thing on its leg. What is that?? A scorpion mite?

Tiny Scorpion

I spent most of Saturday—the most beautiful, perfect day—outside lying on the chaise, reading and napping. At one point my pillow fell to the ground and when I picked it up, there was this tiny scorpion. Hugh's finger there for scale; flower there to protect Hugh's finger.


It had a curious red thing attached to its back leg. I thought I'd uploaded a close-up of it....oh well, later.

Scorpions 2010: #6

In my many years alive on this planet, this I have learned: when a cat very studiously looks at something that you perhaps don't see right that second, TAKE HEED. Most often it is something of which you, too, wish to be aware.

Tonight it was the scorpion on my PILLOW just behind my HEAD. Loretta was lying on my stomach & chest. I was reading (a bad book, from the library, one that it missing 4 pages, but that's another story). I was ready to not read any more, ready to put the book down, ready to turn out the light and go to sleep. But suddenly, Loretta was looking hard at something behind my head, so I sat up and took a look myself.

And !!! There it was! I moved rather quickly. Pillow off bed, shaken over floor, then quick! Cat food bowl upside down onto scorpion! Then I ran for containment container!

Hugh barely woke up at all this, but he did, and asked what it was. Scorpion, I said. On my pillow. Ah, he said, and resumed sleep. So here am I now, all hopped up on scorpies and goofballs and with a giant scorpion in front of me on the desk in this 16-oz. food container originally from Whole Foods, and there he (Hugh, not scorpion) is, calmly asleep. So be it. So say I.

Thank you, Loretta, so brave and so gray, for spotting the scorpion by my head!

Scorpions 2010: #5

Woke up this morning to Hugh standing by the bed, reaching around to his back, saying "Scorpion." It was in his shirt, which he had been wearing but was now on the bed. I took it outside in a hurry.

Benadryl cream & ice.

Scorpions 2010: #4

Found in the WC this evening; I had dashed in to get the zoom lens so I could run back up the hill take photos of the giant spider we saw on our evening Walk of the Dogs, and there it was. Now it is free! Free! In the wild outdoors!

#2 was one Hugh found a week or so ago just inside the front door; I was not home for photo ops.

#3 was dead, crushed by the back door, possibly crushed by the back door. I meant to go back for a photo, but I forgot, and now it's gone.

Scorpions 2010: #1

Found around 11 p.m. on May 7, Friday, on the little rug by Hugh's side of the bed.

Scorpion #6 of 2009

I found this poor little thing struggling mightily in a spiderweb (which also had much dog & cat hair in it) in the bedroom this past Sunday night. He lives out by the wellhouse now. There is no doubt that the spider had lots of other food at hand.


Tailful of dog/cat hair


Are those really its eyes?? Why, yes! We know that they are its Median eyes, thanks to this groovy website!

Scorpion #5 of 2009

Spotted on Friday night, 8.28, in the same place (WC). This one was smaller than the previous night's. We like to think that they have found each other again in their place of relocation out near the wellhouse.

Scorpion #4 of 2009

Sadly, no photo. It was spotted in the WC on—Wednesday? Tuesday?—night and as soon as I'd scooped it up, Hugh whisked it outside to Freedom! and Life! It was rather grand in appearance, though I don't think it was really much bigger than most; but it kept displaying itself, throwing its pedipalps forward and out and flattening its tail behind it, for a wonderfully dramatic effect.

Scorpion #...3? 4? of 2009

Just checked...it's #3. Found this morning on the bathroom carpet, quite desiccated; you can see here that its tail broke off when I moved it from white carpet to stone step for less glare in the photo. I think a cat must have dragged it out from under the bathroom cabinet or the like.

The Scorpions are Back: #2 of 2009

I'm just happy they are not brown recluses, frankly. This one was in the bathroom right beside my head the other night; Hugh kindly came running with the SCARP container as soon as I yelled. He mentioned that he'd come across one recently, too, making this one #2 of 2009.

What I Found in the Globe of the Closet Light When I Changed the Bulb Today

The upper picture is more accurate in light and color, but the lower image is more dramatic, don't you think?


They were utterly desiccated and I am considering using them in some jewelry-making; we'll see.

Scorpions 2 & 3, 2008

Scorpion #3 I found just after I came back from England. I had picked up the dish that we keep at the back of the stove that I put onions in and was cleaning it of old dried onion skins, and there beneath one bit of skin was this dead, junior scorpion. I saved its body. Very interesting to be able to look at it up close at leisure.


The backside


The underneath

Scorpion #2 I have no photo of, and he wouldn't normally be included in the count, as he was outside; but he IS included in the count because he almost fell onto my head when I opened the door to the shed on July 4th. They count if they come into such close range, even if it's outside.

It's a lesser scorpion year. Not that I am complaining—but you know, I'd rather have the scorpions than the brown recluses.

Scorpion #1, 2008

Scorpion #1 2008:
Found Tuesday May 13th, circa 9 p.m. on the floor in the big room, just by where Ham and Frit had just been sparring. Hamilton was poking at it with his paw, which drew my attention to it.


He was the model for this

Scorpion #5, 2007

Approximately 4:45 a.m. in the kitchen sink. The scorpions seem to be appearing at an alarming rate this season, but I am observing and learning things as we carry out this Catch-and-Release program. For one thing, in 3 years and all of these sightings, only one of us (well, and Callie, too, now) has been stung.* And I have yet to see one of them so much as strike out and try to sting when approached and scooped—instead, they just want to get away, and I haven't seen one get defensive and aggressive. This guy today, for example—I actually had to enlist tools just to get him into the container, and it was more than the work of but a moment, but he was the nervous, scared one of the two of us. I was pontificating aloud along these lines this morning, after I was dressed and ready to take the little guy out to the hill's edge, and Hugh said,"I think we are doing the right thing with this." I agree.

*Hugh has reminded me that he got stung, too, last year or the year before, but thinks it too must have been a wee one, as the sting was not so bad.

Scorpion #4, 2007

Sunday night June 3d, approximately 10:30: ON BED. Eek!

I had been reading and was just falling asleep with the light on when something made me open my eyes to see, about one foot from my head, a scorpion! No little baby scorpion such as that which fell on my pillow and stung my chin last year, but a BIG one. It was crawling from the direction of the headboard along the edge of Hugh's pillow (lucky for him, he is in Florida till Wednesday).

This time I was prepared! I grabbed the Scorpion Catch-and-Release container from its nearby post on my dresser and scooped him up in no time. Then I put the container in the sink (in case he escaped from the container, which he couldn't, he wouldn't be able to climb out of the sink). This morning I took him to the edge of the hill, far from the house and far from the Woodlets' nest, and let him go. As he hurried away from me, he paused for a moment, looking back, and waved one little claw at me in sad farewell.

Scorpion #3, 2007

May 31st, approx 10:40 p.m.

Callie the dog got stung by a scorpion. I had just gotten up from my chair in the living room to go to bed. Callie was right in front of me and had her nose to the rug; I assumed she was snarfing up biscuit crumbs. Suddenly she sprang up, sort of yipped, jumped sideways, and rubbed her nose or snout or lip, I don't know which part, on the rug like crazy. I thought, Something has bitten her! My discarded jeans were draped on the footstool and floor in front of my chair, and in front of my feet, and when I picked them up, something ran underneath the footstool. I kicked it out of the way and sure enough, there was 2007 Scorpion #3.

I had to stomp it. There were dogs and cats milling all around and I didn't have time to run for the Scorpion Catch-and-Release container that I have specially prepared for humane treatment this year. Sigh. Well, as J pointed out when I related the tale, it *did* sting first, so perhaps fair action taken on my part. J also asked if I sucked the poison out, knowing full well my slant on dogs and touching them. Anyone who knows me will be rolling on the floor in paroxysms of laughter over the thought of my mouth anywhere near the fur of a dog. Ew, I say, ewwwwwwwww. I'd rather take on the scorpion.

Callie, by the way, is fine. I kept checking her for swelling, pain, irritation, etc., but after the initial reaction, there was nothing. Dogs. I will never figure them out.