LOL! The National Park Service, with humor and advice

[csziggy]

9. As a kid I used to go trail riding through tree covered paths

We'd ride along old phosphate dykes that had oak trees growing up along the edges of the maintenance roads. They were perfect places for the spiders to build their huge webs all the way across the roads.

The group of riders would pick the one with the tallest horse (me) to go first and to carry a long stick to knock down spider webs. Problem was, the big banana spiders (golden orb weavers) would often jump off their webs onto the the stick, run down the stick to bite the person holding it. Those MFers HURT!

I learned to watch out for the spiders and how to brush the stick against a branch to knock the spider off before it got to my hand.

I also got the job of being flag bearer for our 4-H troop at parades and horse shows because of the practice I got being a spider web waver.