fears a.k.a. spiders

So part of coming here to the farm was to challenge myself, take risks (the risk was actually sending out applications and hopefully getting accepting - I don't plan on many more), and face my fears. One of my more irrational fears is about spiders. I just don't like them. They're scary looking and I can't tell where they're going, they have no behaviour traits I recognize - they're unpredictable! I don't like it. However, spiders eat pests and I'm on an organic farm, so I've told myself, "As scary as spiders are Maddie, they must stay, you cannot kill them. There's also ten spiders in every foot of space in the barn and if you don't suck it up you won't be able to play with the kittens or chicks in the barn." So I will proudly say that while gardening I have seen many spiders and only once did I avoid it - but that was because it was a big black hairy spider I had never seen before and I went to the opposite end to give it time to hide before I got back there. So I still faced the fear! I even grabbed a spider in a handful of dirt (accidentally).

Despite all this success I always put up my hood and scrunch my shoulders together and stare intently at the air in front of me when I go onto the second floor of the barn. There's an archway I have to walk under that is covered in cobwebs and I have forced myself not to examine the cobwebs as I would at the museum. My fear of spiders has progressed to the point where when I'm in a place where I know there's a lot of spiders I must inspect doorways at least twice before walking through and I look at the doorknobs before I grab it. Life has taught me that the only predictable thing about spiders is that they always drop down from the ceiling right in front of you, that when working in the garden do not stay still very long or stand close to large piles of organic material because spiders will climb on you. The museum has taught me that spiders, particularly big ones, like to live on or around door handles and sometimes even under doors (and that the ones who live under doors always run at you - not away (contrary to popular belief).

So today I had some success. I went to check on the chicks and noticed something hang in the air and lo-and-behold a rather large spider was hanging in the air right where I was going to walk. I managed to get in and out of that room multiple times today after doing some thorough inspections. I came across many daddy-long-legs in the green house and I worked right beside them (didn't even flinch - I was concentrating on counting too much and trying my hardest to be as quick and efficient as possible). I can deal with spiders in these situations (for the most part) however, another thing the museum taught me is that spiders like to hang around toilets (especially really big daddy-long-legs).

he looks small, but I can assure you he's probably the size of two or three twoonies!

I know they're harmless (don't they have the most poisonous venom but their bite is so small it's uneffective?) and happy where he is and doesn't want to come near me - but there is no stinkin' way I'm sitting on a toilet right beside that freakish thing!