I had never seen a black widow until we moved to our “country’ish” house that sits on 1.5 acres.  There’s a tree right in the middle of the yard and when my husband was cleaning up all the baby trees under it, he found one of those little Momma’s with the red hour-glass on her belly.  He put her in a jar and about 452 baby spiders hatched two weeks later.  Just the thought of those little monsters still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Bill Bird over at Sacramento Vegetable Gardening doesn’t much like them either,

The Black Widow spider is something to be feared — despised and eliminated. I’m not sure why I feel that way. I’m fortunate in that I’ve never been bitten by one. I know people who have — everyone does. But it’s a gardening experience that I do not want to share at this time thank you. If you didn’t notice — the Year of 2009 was a pretty big one for Black Widow Spiders.

I suppose even black widow spiders offer some sort of benefit in nature.  But if I see a black widow, I’m going to stomp it just like Bill.

Photo by ewen & donabel’s photo stream via Flickr Creative Commons.