Thursday, July 27, 2017

Scary Night Shift Findings



I don't always sleep well. Too many years as a night nurse. First as a floor nurse working 11pm -7 am, then as a hospice nurse who took call and got awakened in the middle of night for needed home visits, and then again as staff nurse who was home all week and worked 12 hr nights on the weekends.

My circadian rhythm never did recover. Here on The Poor Farm, I generally sleep better than in the decades prior. This is especially true in the summer as I am physically busy a good part of the day but, every few weeks, I find myself pulling an all nighter again.

Last night was one of those nights. Worried about the new barn build, an upcoming car repair bill, the issue of rebuilding parts of our rocket mass stove before winter etc. etc. I found myself wide awake at 0300. Remembering I had forgotten to lock our chickens in their coop the evening before, I ventured outside and ran smack into this other night shift worker.


Building a huge web between the old icky house on our property and the cow's milking shed, this big fellow looked even better in the light of my cell phone torch. Even blinded by my light, and later by the flash of my cell phone camera, he didn't slow his work at all.


I like spiders, but my daughter-in-law Tab hates them, so please don't tell her about this post!

20 comments:

  1. I don't know how people do it - working shift work. Spider webs are fascinating things and a real engineering marvel! -Jenn

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    1. I did love working night shift as an RN but I worked with some fabulous nurses!

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  2. I don't mind spiders but my daughters are afraid of them. One day I was sitting in our living room, my two youngest daughters, teenagers at the time, were in the back of the house. All of a sudden I heard a horrific scream. I wasn't sure if I should get my gun first or find out what was happening. I ran to the back and found my daughter cowering from a (small) spider in the bathroom. I rolled my eyes and removed the spider from the house. No need to use Smith and Wesson for this intruder. LOL

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  3. This is so funny, I just posted about bugs too. We have a ton of spiders here, one of which weaves a web over part of the backdoor each night. Which I walk into each morning. We also have one that weaves across a path as wide as our mower. How do they do that? Do they jump? *shudder*

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    1. They are amazing are they not? Wish I could be that productive in 8 hours.

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  4. Oh my, give me snakes and frogs and mice and rats but NO SPIDERS! I once left an entire section of my raspberry patch unpicked all season because a ginormous black and yellow spider had taken up residents. Yep, nothing with more than four legs for me!

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    1. I used to feel that way about bees, now I hang with them daily, even make sure their water dish is filled every day.

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  5. BTW the pictures are pretty cool!

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  6. I got up at 1.45 am last night (this morning), and saw the most wonderful Shooting Star.

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    1. Well worth being up at night. I hope you wished for something grand.

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    1. I had a cooperative subject, blinded by the light. (Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night)

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  8. Lovely web (but not so much if you were to run into it with your face). Around here, we have a bumper crop of baby jumping spiders this year. The glob of eyes on their foreheads gives them an earnest look as they hop about the window sills.

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  9. Summer nights venturing outside has me waving my arms in front of me like I'm kind of swimming. It must look mighty strange, but I'd rather my hands strike the web first, rather than my face. Oooohh!

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  10. Only crazy people and arachnids work at night. ;)

    Coming from someone who would start work at 2am, as a baker. Eventually, I got over the crazy nightshift goggles, once I stopped that line of work, and learned to enjoy a good sleep in.

    I hope all your plans come to fruition on time, or at least, in tact. :)

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  11. We get to see spider webs almost on a daily basis outside the mill apt windows. They are so interesting in the patterns and nearly all are gone by the morning hours.

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