Spiders Are Useful. The Rest of You Can Go.

Two nights ago, I heard a strange scratching at the door. I looked at the clock. Just perfect. Alone in the woods with two kids and a dog at two in the morning. I looked at the dog. At two in the morning, Zelda resembles a mostly life-like 85 pound golden retriever rug. She's not scratching anything. She doesn't lift her head up as I stumble over her to turn on the porch light. 

I expect to see a swirl of bats out there, because we have bats. They live in our dormers, but technically, they are outside, and that's more or less okay with me, so long as I am inside. If not bats, I think I might see a red squirrel when the porch light flicks on,  but I don't. The thing scratching at my door is a porcupine. And if not for its coat of swords, it would be cute. Its white belly is pressed against the glass, and its beattie little eyes are oggling Zelda, who can't be bothered to oggle back. Of the eight dogs that live on our peninsula during the course of the summer, Zelda is the only one that has not come home with a snout full of quills. I wonder if benign neglect is her secret.  I pound the glass and the porcupine makes its way off the porch. I'm sure it's hurrying, but there's very little proof of that. In the morning, my mother will ask why I didn't kill it. "They say all you need is a shovel, because porcupines are so slow, you can just thump them on the head if you're lost in the woods, and eat them."

My mother is 80, but when she says this, she looks game to try thumping something over the head with a shovel. "I would have had to open the door to my cottage in order to kill it," I explain. "It could have walked inside."

She shrugs. "Still... you could have killed it."

My family doesn't have a particularly loving relationship with the creatures whose space we invaded by building cottages. But then, most tend to stay clear. At least, they did, until this summer, when the rain drove mice in, porcupines attacked the dogs (or vice versa - in any event, the dogs lost), snakes sought out what little sun could be found in the same places we did, and mosquitoes seemed to repopulate every four minutes with a full two months of damp breeding weather. With no small amount of chagrin I tell you that this was more often than not the call from the kids' room: "Goodnight, Mom. Can you come kill this beetle before you go to bed?"

And I did. I killed all summer. It was a full on slaughter of wood beetles and ants and... just about everything except for spiders. I don't kill spiders. I admire spiders. They build incredible lacy webs in strategic places and catch all manner of flying monsters. (And then they mummify them, and I'm sorry about those bites on your belly from last night, but nothing is cooler than a spider hard at work).  And what do spiders have to do with home energy efficiency? I thought you'd never ask.

When you come home from your next weekend away, take note of the location of spider webs. You will find them where your house has a draft - where the flies zip by on a soft current of air coming in from the outside.  That is, right where there's a big fat leak in your building envelope; and the spot you should head to as soon as you load up your caulking gun.

You might not care all that much right now. But come winter, you'll feel that breeze, and wish you'd done something about it.
My family doesn't have a particularly loving relationship with the creatures whose space we invaded by building cottages. But then, most tend to stay clear. At least, they did, until this summer, when the rain drove mice in, porcupines attacked the dogs (or vice versa - in any event, the dogs lost), snakes sought out what little sun could be found in the same places we did, and mosquitoes seemed to repopulate every four minutes with a full two months of damp breeding weather. With no small amount of chagrin I tell you that this was more often than not the call from the kids' room: "Goodnight, Mom. Can you come kill this beetle before you go to bed?"

And I did. I killed all summer. It was a full on slaughter of wood beetles and ants and... just about everything except for spiders. I don't kill spiders. I admire spiders. They build incredible lacy webs in strategic places and catch all manner of flying monsters. (And then they mummify them, and I'm sorry about those bites on your belly from last night, but nothing is cooler than a spider hard at work).  And what do spiders have to do with home energy efficiency? I thought you'd never ask.

When you come home from your next weekend away, take note of the location of spider webs. You will find them where your house has a draft - where the flies zip by on a soft current of air coming in from the outside.  That is, right where there's a big fat leak in your building envelope; and the spot you should head to as soon as you load up your caulking gun.

You might not care all that much right now. But come winter, you'll feel that breeze, and wish you'd done something about it.

Want to cure the leaks in your house? Start by watching out for Charlotte. She knows where they are.