There 's a gecko in my boot!

Who would have thought that we have little critters in the sandbox? Sure I see lots of tracks when I ride in the desert - scorpions, spiders, lizards, snakes, hares, fox, gazelles (camels and horses). I just don't see much actual life there during the day. Once in a great while a gecko will run across the sand and then quickly burrow down. Funny pale little monsters.

Aside from the rat climbing down the side of the house one late night this winter, we don't see a lot of creepy crawlies around the garden. The occasional gecko likes to sit above the light at the side door and drive Slim crazy because he can't reach it.

I keep my riding boots outside the door to keep sand and dirt away. Every time I go riding, I just slip my feet into the boots without thinking. (At 6am you don't think much, it's basicly on auto pilot from bed to car, to petrol station for ice coffee, to ranch). This time, something squirmed around the toes in my left boot and I totally freaked out. Car keys and sunglasses went one way in the driveway and my body went the other....kicked off the boot and out comes a 2-inch gecko....he looked a lot more horrified than I was, and soon scurried under a bucket. Sh*t - I nearly had a heart attack and I could potentially have awoken the whole subdivision with my screams. Geckos are harmless and we need them to eat the bugs we don't want around.

Had dinner with my brother a few days ago; we are both alone at the moment - Tina and Josefine are in Denmark and Aric is in the US for work (and golf, golf and a little golf). So I told Mark the gecko story and he mentioned that he has spiders. Not many and not big, but the girls are terrified of them and he is at wits end. He then told me that Camel spiders are the worst...we started googling them and YouTubing the ones filmed in Iraq. I think we have them here too but I've never seen any - not even at the ranch, which you'd think would be a haven with hay and sand and stables. Apparently they can get so big that they eat geckos...how come where there a little critters, there are always bigger ones and bigger ones....

The day I find a camel spider in my boot I will truly freak!