It’s been so hot and dry in Central Texas that lately all sorts of wildlife is coming to the back yard to take a sip of water and cool off:

Fox taking a sip.

A Gray Fox taking a much needed drink from the fountain. Skinny little fella. We see him almost every night browsing around the bird feeders looking for anything edible.

A roadrunner makes his way every morning to the bird bath for a sip too. I apologize for the terrible picture, but he really doesn’t like to stay around too long.

A lucky picture as he runs by the window.

I was so excited to find a tarantula burrow on the east side of my yard.  2 days after finding her, I saw that she had molted and discarded her old exoskeleton out of her hole. At first I thought it was the remnants of an unfortunate cricket, but then I saw the leg casings and the body and realized this is the old skin. With the skin she also threw out a lot of soil. I guess she’s expanding her living quarters to make room for her growing body.

Terry our resident tarantula – a bit camera shy. But still sitting right at the front of her burrow stalking anything that may wander by.

And a toad sitting near a container of water plants – hoping for some rain, I’m sure.

So the folks finished the construction this afternoon. The price tag came out below the quoted amount! They did a great job! It was time to set the spider free. I watered in the dust and cleared out the hole that Matilda had built . It was a bit destroyed and I had to do some reconstruction. At dusk we carried out the container she was in and scooped her out into her area. I think she had no idea where she was because she just panicked and ran to the edge of the water tank. We herded her back to the hole and left her there to calm down.

When I went to check on her about an hour later she was just hanging outside of her hole. I hope she makes it. We did the best we could so it’s just a wait and see kinda thing.

The spiderlings have hatched and are hanging out on mom's back.

A week later and the babies have hatched and what a great mom Matilda is! Our wolf spider with all her young on her body. It’s quite a creepy sight seeing her body move as the little ones crawl around for a better position. I watched them climb down mom’s legs to explore and then go right back up to her again. She’s like a spider RV for the kids.

These tanks are huge. Somebody drew the short straw and had to climb inside each one to install the outlets. Thankfully this was done early in the day and in the shade, since temperatures went up to 105 degrees.

2 2500 water tanks, ready for setup.

Trenching to run pipe from gutter to water tanks.

Tanks are in place. Laying the pipe next. We'll have to paint those tanks white to keep the water cooler.

So the 2 2500 gallon water tanks for our 5500 gallon rain water collection system will be delivered tomorrow and the guys are coming to dig a trench from the gutters to them. We have decided that it was time to move Matilda (one of our many large Wolf spiders outside) out of the way. She had decided to build a nest burrow right where the digging was going to happen. After much adrenalin and squealing on my part, she is now sitting in a large Tupperware container with some soil, leaves and a box as a cave (they like dark places to hide in) and some water. It seemed hardly fair to throw her into the woods because she had a nest sack attached to her belly and would have been easy prey for some hungry bird – like a road runner. You can see in the picture how big the egg sac is and how it drags behind her body when she walks.

I just hope her young do not hatch in the next 2 days as I really don’t feel like herding hundreds of tiny wolf spiders out of my house.

Catching her was pretty easy and I am happy to report nobody got bitten. About a week ago she had put leaves and webbing over the entrance of her cave and that was a sure sign to me that she had laid some eggs. Female wolf spiders drag their egg sack around under their bellies. To catch her I poured lots of water over her nest hole and as it flooded she came out. I quickly scooped her up into a large pot and then into her container. She is sitting in our dark room, where she can de-stress.

The trenching should hopefully be done by Wednesday with all the tanks in place (if all goes well), and then I can put her back out there after we have reconstructed her burrow for her. I know we won’t do nearly as good a job so I hope she makes it.