Say hello to my little friend

[mschrank]

One of the places I lived in India as a kid was crawling (!) with scorpions. We used to make a habit of turning our shoes over and shaking them before putting our feet into them when we got up in the morning.

This was the same place where I used to pass the time using a pellet gun on rats dashing down the hall toward the kitchen, as they passed the open doorway from living room to hall. Kinda like my own private shooting gallery! Great place for a teenager.

My wife and I spent some time in Nepal (Peace Corps for me, medical clinics for her). If it wasn't for that, this lil' bug would've gotten a lot bigger reaction out of us. The only thing that does cause me concern is that our 8 month daughter might not deal to well with a sting (my three year old boy wanted to play with it).

[gjbivin]

When we moved down here to Arizona from Salt Lake City, I was expecting to see scorps all over the place. I found one in the house when I first moved in (fortunately, the rest of the family hadn't come down yet); haven't seen another one in 13 years.

I've been meaning for years to take a blacklight and look around the back yard at night to see if any show up (they flourese under UV).

[germdoc]

2 days ago on my way home, about 1/4 mile from my house, I saw something wriggling across the road--stopped to look at it--it was a 3-foot long rattlesnake. I pulled up beside him and watched him for a good 2-3 minutes before he went into the bush. And no, I didn't try to run him over--keeps the rabbits and mice down.

[dale]

Our house was built on land that used to be orange groves. When we first moved in, scorpions were a fairly common occurrence, but over the years they dwindled down to almost nothing. Then, the orange groves next to our subdivision were torn down for more construction, and the scorpions from there migrated our way. Occurrences had slown down, but this summer has been bad again.

We usually put them in a jar. One time we had two at once, and one ate the other. We caught another one right after that and put it in the jar with the same scorpion that ate the other, and those two grabbed each other's claws and walked around in circles with their tails raised for a long time. That was something to see!

[jnesmith]

I've been stung a couple of time by our Florida scorpions. Once when I was fairly young. Something bit my neck while I was asleep in my bed. I jumped up and pulled the covers back and found the sucker. Caught it woke my dad up to show it to him. He took one look at the little fella and told me to go back to bed.

The other time, I was dove hunting and leaned against a tree. One fell down the back of my shirt and stung me 5 or 6 times on my back. That was not quite as fun.

[Texas splinter]

Say hello to my little friend

What the heck is a scorpion doing in Oregon, vacationing?

Geeesh! And here I thought that EVERYONE knew that Hood River was the wind surfing capital of the world! The scorpion knew!!!