Social Distancing and Isolation IV.....Mouse Spider and Burrow...

 We are all living at a much more relaxed pace now, are we not? yet somehow my days seem busier than ever and in the evening I am happy to flop into bed with a book...mind you I only read for ten minutes at the most and sink into blessed sleep till four am....the "Wolf hour" I believe it is called somewhere.
We are still longing for rain yet meanwhile I am planting out truncated  agapanthus divisions throughout the garden and at last I have them all in. Whether they will survive is another matter.

 Last week Kym dug over some of the vegetable patch and found this very interesting structure,
it is solidly constructed and very smooth inside.
In South Australia we have a burrowing spider called Missulina Reflexa and it is a red headed spider. I looked up the information on Australian spiders on the net where there are lots of photos.
They are not the prettiest of creatures I find and as I was an arachnophobe it is amazing I can stand to look at the photos at all....
They are called Mouse spiders because they make these tunnels which look like mouse holes.

 On the left you can see how wide the hole is , so I am not absolutely sure it is a mouse spider burrow. Nevertheless whatever constructed it is an absolute architect. It is beautifully smooth inside and quite deep and solidly constructed.
While I was digging the holes for the agapanthus this afternoon, Lo and behold, I dug up a Mouse spider and there it sat among the gum leaves...
I rushed back to the house to get the camera, thinking all the while, when I get back it will have gone... I picked up a plastic food container as well, just in case it was still there, and sure enough it was still there next to the hole I dug.

So I managed to get it into the container, shoving it with a piece of bark to encourage it.
Took it back to the patio and set up a few books to act as tripod to hold the camera steady on the small focus setting. Then I encouraged it into an ice cream container as that had higher sides than the one it was in and I thought it might climb out. But, no, it is a Zen spider and not at all frisky, a bit like our dear Zen Frogmouths....
So, there it is...if you want more information about spiders there is an amazing amount of information on the net....what would we do without the net......