misbegOTTen spiders

If you were to stop by my house today you would step up on the porch, ring the doorbell and as you stood there waiting for me to answer, you would probably glance down and in the corner of my front porch you would see a green hedge apple (Osage Orange).  As I open the door to say hello and welcome you in the first thing you would say is,
     "Ott, A why is there a hedge apple on your front porch?"
     "Oh that's there to keep the spiders away."  I would respond. 
You would probably walk on in the house with a confused look on your face. 

As you can tell I've been asked that question before.  So here's the story.   When we first moved into our house we found a lot of spiders.  The house hadn't been lived in for about 6 months so we didn't think much about it. One day last year while visiting with my grandmother she mentioned that there was an old wives' tale that Hedge Apples keep spiders away.

As luck would have it, just down the road from us along the side of a cornfield grew a hedge apple tree.  So I picked one up and put it in a corner of our living room, behind the couch where no one could see it.  All last fall and into the winter months we never saw another spider.  Around late January the hedge apple started to turn brown, so I threw it away.  As the months got warmer we would occassionally see a spider.

So this year, I figured if one worked good then 4 should work great!!!  I have one at the front door, one at the back door, one hidden in the living room and one back around by the crawl space.  So far, no spiders.  I'll keep them around till midwinter and when they start to turn I'll give them a toss.

If you have spiders, I suggest giving this old wives' tale a try.
This post was linked to: Thirsty Thursday and Traveling Through Thursday