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I’m not sure what it is about growing old but I find myself always worried about all different types of life now, from insects to animals. We have a house on a lake full of bass that really don’t taste very good so I can’t fish because I may hurt one, sick isn’t it. Am I going crazy or do you think as I do? I’m beginning to think the life of an animal is no less precious than my own, although I don’t think I could ever be a vegetarian.

James, I hear you! My folks moved to a lake in the woods in the UP of Michigan after I graduated high school. Had heard about bird hunting so I went out solo and came across a ruffed grouse that wasn’t 20’ away. After blasting it to smithereens with the shotgun, I proudly took it home to my folks. What I didn’t realize at the time, but soon figured out, was that the bird was a mother grouse seeking to distract the intruder from her young ones. That was it for me for hunting of any kind. I still…

It might interest you to know that as a special education teacher, I kept as a pet a black widow on my desk for years. We fed it flies and crickets. It’s important to know what is and what isn’t a real threat. Black widow bites ARE serious but they seldom bite unless threatened by being touched and they often bite “blanks”. No venom, like a warning shot. They don’t live in my house but I’m not inclined to kill them if I happen to see them outside. I’m a lot less forgiving of brown recluse who h…

Thank you for that insight! Did the same spider live all that time? Figured their life span was much shorter.

No but each one lives about 3 years with good care. Since they are literally everywhere except the north and south poles, they were easy to find around the school building. A kindergarten teacher had me paged one day when she recognized one crawling across the floor!! Interestingly, no one in all those years was ever bitten. That’s the potential vs actual threat demonstration.