I have always been a bit of a hands on girl, and as a farmer, ending your day with no skin left on your knuckles is not uncommon, in fact this is very often the case, but lately I honestly feel that I have been abusing my hands just a tad more than usual.
So if my hand were able to talk they would probably be telling me:
PUT THAT DOWN!
I am pretty sure that this is not even the strangest thing that I have ever picked up, in fact it is just one of many critters that I have handled. In recent months I have encountered quite a few strange creeping and crawling stuff that I ended up handling, like snakes scorpions and spiders - in the picture above I am holding a sun-spider, also known as a camel spider or a red roman.
This is just one of the many weird and wonderful insects that can be found around the house on the farm, and during our spring months they normally start coming out more often right through to the end of summer.
The Red Roman belongs to the Arachnida family in the Solifugae group, but the only thing that it has in common is the fact that it has eight legs. They are more like an ant/spider/scorpion hybrid. And although they can be very aggressive and inflict a painful bite - I am happy to report that they do not have venom sacs behind their powerful pinchers and as such they are not poisonous.
The Red Roman - also dubbed the Sun Spider, because of the fact that they would run from shadow to shadow if they are active during the day giving them the appearance of running away from the sun, maybe the fact that the word Solifugae, from Latin origin means “fleeing from the sun” has something to do with this as well...
Never the less it is always fun watching people encounter these spiders for the first time - as they would often run towards peoples shadows, and because it looks like this huge monstrous spider is bolting towards them - they would run - and of course the Red Roman would then carry on chasing their shadow - well at least until it finds another shady spot in the process.
Afrikaans South Africans would often refer to the Red Roman as a 'haarskeerder' meaning hair clipper in English, because of the fact that they would often carry hair of animals or humans back to their nests to be used as a nest lining. And it was believed that this insect would cut the hair of sleeping people or animals in order to attain the hair - but I have never seen that happen and I am not too sure that I believe that.
On the upside this little guy actually plays a great roll as far as pest control goes, as they tend to feed on spiders and scorpions - on the other hand they would also eat lizzards and small birds - even their own kind - If they can catch it - its food! They have insanely powerful chelicerae (which is just a fancy word for pinchers) which can very easily cut through skin and even bird bones - I shit you not, I once watched one of these guys going at a discarded chicken bone - and the chicken bone definitely came second!
Such fascinating creatures, but should I have picked it up... Probably not!
They would also probably tell me...
If you can't stand the heat - keep us away from the oven element!
Let me just start by saying - there was a baking incident - I am sure that many of you are familiar with this one from your own personal experience! Or maybe it is just me
Now this little fraction of hand abuse happened while baking a three layered pudding filled chocolate cake with a ganache topping for my daughters birthday. This is a plain straight forward incident, I was in a hurry to get the cake layers out of the oven and ended up burning my hand on the top element when I took one of them out.
I will admit that the end result was worth the pain, see for yourself:
Then of course they would also say...
Stop Putting us in Shitty Situations!
Now this is something that I have been doing a lot of lately - shoveling shit... literally.
A lot of the work that I am currently busy with requires me to collect manure and distribute it where needed, I use this for my worm farm as well as my Black Soldier Fly larvae, and I even use it when I mix my own compost or potting soil for the plants that I am currently cultivating. I will admit that working with tons of crap a day might not be the most appealing thought - but hey, sometimes a girl has to do, what a girl has to do!
But most importantly - they would definitely tell me:
Never Fuck With The Blender!!!
Now just in case you have ever wondered what would happen if your fingers had to get caught in the blades of the blender, let me share this little story with you...
You see on the farm I serve as the farmer, the vet, the chef, the builder and the handyman (and that is just to name a few) So of course when the blender stopped working I started tinkering. I would plug it in, test it - plug it out fiddle, plug it back in and repeat.
But at some stage my teenage daughter and I ended up arguing about something silly, and in frustration I refocused my attention to the blender, just then I noticed that the activation pin seemed to be stuck. This is the little pin that is situated right on the base of the blender just beside the rotating blades - when the jug of the blender screws on - it would normally push this pin down allowing you to activate the blades by turning the machine on. Being slightly upset and distracted in the moment, I did not realize that I had not plugged the machine out again, nor did I put it off. So as soon as I pressed the pin down, the blender blades unleashed their wrath.
More that being in extreme pain - as the blades managed to hit some nerve endings and muscles - I was absolutely humiliated by my stupidity! But I assure you, that it is a mistake that you only make once, and I am left with a decent scar to remind me of that. I can be very lucky, because it sure as hell could have been a lot worse.