Really BIG Spider

About five years ago, we started finding this REALLY BIG spider in and around our house.  I think our first experience with him was around the holiday's.  I brought in a grapevine wreath from the garage to hang above the fireplace.  I'm standing on a chair with my face right in this wreath as I'm trying to hang it when I notice that something is staring back at me.

I'm not really afraid of spiders but when they are this size, you just can't help but be startled.  I gave the wreath a good shake, the spider landed on the floor with a rather loud, SPLAT!  I scooped it up and hurried it back outside.

I grew up in this area never ever remember seeing anything like this guy so I started to do some research and low and behold, it's an immigrant from the Mediterranean and Northern Africa.  There are a number of scientist studying these spiders and feel they probably found their way to the Bay Area in someones luggage.  Check out this article on them from the SF Gate in 2006:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/26/BAGHRGT0E11.DTL

I snapped the photo below of him one morning when I found him on our green waste cart and the scientists confirmed that indeed this is the Zoropsis Spinimana that they are studying.  We like to call him Schneider the Spider.

Zoropsis Spinimana - aka: Schneider the Spider

And of course, it seemed like we were finding him all over the place back then.  Mike would even take him several blocks away from our house and dump him for fear that he had some sort of homing ability and was returning to OUR house.

I've been just itching for our girls to grow up big enough so they can eat Schneider the Spider.  And it finally happened.  I was out in the garage and there he was, hanging out on the white washing machine.  I mention the color of the machine only because in the shadow of the light, it makes him appear about three times his normal size.  Which is really big to begin with.

So I scooped him up in a large cup and dumped him out in the girls treat bowl.  I thought for certain that Coco would be the first to snap him up.  But it was Ginger who stepped right up to the plate and chocked him down, legs and all.  Gulp!  I think she may have even burped afterwards.  That's a big treat for a tiny hen.

I never thought the day would come where I'd be excited to find Schneider, but when you have hungry chickens with big beaks, Schneider is indeed YUMMO!!!