Mauldins vs Scorpions

Mauldins vs Scorpions

This post is part a new paranoia that has entered my life, and part recap of a hill country getaway weekend with the husband. First up, hill country.

If you drive about an hour and a half southwest of Austin, the liberal bubble of hipsters and hippies that I call home suddenly transforms into something a lot more Texas.

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Sure, the foliage and landscape changes pretty dramatically into less soil and more rocks but it’s more than just topography.

There are cattle guards, loose livestock, a plethora of wildlife in each direction and herds of “pet” (I’m calling them pet because often they’re just kept for hunters) elk, exotic antelope, bison and more.

This was in the middle of the road where we stayed
This was in the middle of the road where we stayed

Tim and I are techy city slickers, so for us – a weekend like this is super relaxing and novel. We squeal in delight when we see baby sheep sleeping in the middle of the road, and when I see “interesting” forms of taking livestock you bet your bluebonnets that I’m going to take a picture.

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Aside from chillin’ in the countryside, there’s also some good hiking. We have climbed Enchanted Rock before, which is mostly a steep but flat walk up the side of a giant hill.

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This time though, I had a blonde moment of sorts and took us on the wrong path. Instead of a well trekked, gradual incline we found ourselves climbing up and over tons of boulders. It was pretty fun… especially if you make yourself forget that there are probably rattle snakes hiding everywhere below your feet.

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So we ended up on a slightly less enchanted rock, but it was fun getting there for sure.

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The rest of our time was spent battling these guys:

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I’ve lived in Texas for five years now and have never seen a scorpion. I’ve heard about other people dealing with scorpions, and I figured that they were hallucinating or I was blessed with an anti-scorpion aura or something. That was until I went to put Simon’s bridle on Thursday evening, and looked down to find a scorpion on my arm.

ON MY ARM!

Luckily, it was day time so it was “sleeping”. I think it was hiding in a saddle pad that I shook out, and I shook the devil creature on myself. I just flicked it off, and swore to never see another scorpion again.

Until we got to our hill country cabin, and sat on the front porch to relax.

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Scorpions. Scorpions everywhere!

Turns out, neither me or my husband are very brave about scorpions. We squealed. We stomped. We killed three the first night before hiding back in the house, but we weren’t sure the house was safe. We took apart every linen on the bed (even pillow cases) before we declared it scorpion free.

The next day we went to Walmart and bought anti-scorpion powder, which we shook all over the front bushes of the house and then doused with water to hide the now snow-white bushes. Night two at the cabin yielded one scorpion on the front porch, which we killed and then retreated inside. We thought the back porch was safe, until my husband put his hand in the bushes to pick up some cash that fell out of his pocket only to have a scorpion crawl on his arm.

The next morning I found a dead scorpion in the kitchen.

So basically, I’m never leaving Austin again. Complain about hipsters all you want… at least I have never seen a scorpion in my house… yet.

44 thoughts on “Mauldins vs Scorpions

  1. OMG! I’m creeped out just thinking about them! I am suddenly grateful that I’m only battling ants in my house.

  2. i absolutely do not judge you one iota for being terrified of scorpions. I have never seen one before, but after seeing Hook as a child (with the scorpion filled chest) I think they are the stuff of nightmares.

  3. I kill little ones all the time at my house. At an apartment where I used to live I had to kill big ones all the time. I see one anywhere, I kill it with a boot, cane, or other thing I can smush it with. Bug sprays don’t work on them.

  4. I can’t remember ever seeing a scorpion when I was in Texas. I saw one or two in Hawaii but there weren’t very many. My husband put sticky mouse traps all around his bed when he was deployed in Afghanistan this last time and he caught all kinds of scorpions in them. Uh…NO THANKS!!!

  5. Australia has a lot of creepy crawlies but the one I’m so so so glad I never had to meet there was the scorpion. Those things are grosser than anything I ever met in Australia and terrifying to boot.

  6. Meh, those are pretty much the least of your worries in Aridzona. They’re everywhere…. My best friend being in their house 3 months had killed almost 100 of them. Seriously. They were all outside, but still. and she lives somewhat in the middle of town! Another friend of mine living in town got stung 3 times reaching into the pool filter basket to clean the leaves out. Little bugger was in there and got him. At first he thought it was a small twig with stickers on it. Everything here has stickers on it.

    The largest one I have seen to date? Legs and all it was the size of a dinner plate. I shit you not. I came around the corner of the barn into the aisle to feed and there it was. Yeah, it freaked me out. Then it started coming towards me. I retreated, grabbed a big rock and went back for it. I missed and it went up under the barn siding. I fed and got out of there. I sure wasn’t sticking around to wee when or where it came out.

  7. I think scorpions are pretty cool. At be zoo. Behind glass. BUT HELL TO NO DO NOT TOUCH ME. This is the stuff of nightmares I say. (I’ll admit I chuckled a bit about the anti-scorpion powder though…I didn’t know that was a thing!)

  8. Uhhh freak me out. Although there are supposed to be scorpions here, too (just have’t seen one). Yep, stay in your hipster haven…I would!

  9. No, no, no! *the shivers*

    I feel like I remember Jenj having some scorpion encounters a while back. Don’t they like to hide in your shoes and such?

    Of course – we’ve had three shark attacks resulting in lost limbs over the last few weeks. In waist deep water. So – it’s all relative I guess ;D

  10. Very funny! As a country girl myself, they don’t bother me. We had five acres for a while and found them everywhere. No biggie. Except for the one time a scorpion thicker and bigger than my hand crawled out from under the sofa.

    That episode required a full sweep of the house that had my husband moving every piece of furniture that we owned. Small bugs are okay. Gigantic creepy crawlies, not so much.

  11. Hahahahaha… yep, this is my life every day at our house. Luckily this year we’ve only seen about 3 inside, I think because all of the rain. Nothing works on them other than a swift beating with a shoe.

    Glad you didn’t get stung though!

  12. tarantulas I really don’t mind. They are harmless and are beneficial spiders. Yes they are scary looking but I don’t freak about them. Poisonous spiders however… And scorpions. They are a huge NOPE, along with flying things that have stingers.

  13. This is a bit random, but if you want a good chemistry experiment, grab a scorpion before you kill it (with pliers/gloves/whatever). Take a lighter, hold it under the stinger, and start the fire (make sure not to light the scorpion on fire). The poison dripping into the fire should show the five signs of chemical changes.

  14. Thanks for this though, Lauren. It has made me grateful that the only bugaboo that invades my living space on a semi-regular basis is the famous Texas sized cockroach. They aren’t poisonous, they don’t sting, they are just large and run really fast. AND they aren’t the infest-your-whole-house german cockroach. They are american cockroaches, aka palmetto bugs or waterbugs. Yes, grateful.

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