Spiders. GAH!

I went out with some coworkers Friday night, and we hashed out a bunch of our frustrations. I really doubt that both the team leads and the director of PPC training will be staying there much longer. If anybody on my team leaves, I'm outta there. This just really sucks--I wish I could find a job... for some reason, when I was living up in Omaha it was so much easier to look for a job, and I had a lot of responses to my resume. Sigh.

Saturday morning, I went out to the barn to take care of the horses. Richard and his wife were out of town, and they asked me if I could feed/water, etc. I had gone out on Tuesday, and as I was doing chores, Richard came down to talk to me. He said the (gorgeous) chestnut mare was going to be "my project". This mare is a pistol! Richard's exact words were, "She can be a mean witch." Haha, great. Occasionally, I do like a little spunk in the horses I ride, although Baloo took "spunk" to a whole 'nother extreme. Apparently, there are times when Richard lunges her, and she'll drag him all over the arena.

Anyway, so on Saturday, I let her out, started cleaning her stall, and looked over to make sure she wasn't getting herself into trouble (she kept trying to scratch her legs or something on the wheelbarrow, and I could just picture her tripping). I look over, she's fine, happen to see movement out of the corner of my eye, and I notice easily the biggest spider I have EVER seen. This thing was one of those huge, black, hairless, poisonous-looking things, and it was every bit as big as a wolf spider, though not as "thick" ( :shudder: ). The body itself was about an inch and a half long, and with its legs, probably a good two and a half inches. This thing was huge. I dropped my pitchfork, scrambled out of the stall, and got up to its web, which was being safely blocked by the mare, whom I leaned into to get closer. ;) The web itself was pretty big, but the strands were really thick, and it had a pretty intricate pattern set up in the middle. I was so creeped out I had goosebumps, and yet I couldn't stop looking at the thing.

It really pains me to do this, but I'm curious as to what it was. So, I googled it, and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_garden_spider The one I saw had less yellow on it, although I didn't see the top of it--just saw the bottom through the web. :shudder: I'm getting the creepy-crawlies again just thinking about it--I had the creepy-crawlies at the barn after seeing Gargantuan, and at one point, swatted crazily at my face (a fly of course), and scratched my eye, lol.