I mixed an ounce and a half of Tempo wettable powder with a gallon of hose water in a hand can. The brass handle on the top of the can doubled as a pump. With it, the pump, I loaded a couple of psi into the stainless container, began to spray the eaves of my last stop for the day, and did so mindless and robotic. My thoughts were elsewhere but where, I haven’t a clue, probably climbing a rock somewhere far removed from an insecticide barrier spray applied to the home of an arachnophobe in the waning heat of a summer day.

I once saw a jumping spider on the edge of a Colman cooler while I sat at a campsite in Slade, Kentucky, nursing a cold beer. A fly landed inches away from the spider on the white plastic corner of the icebox, way too close for eight eyes to miss. The hunter rocked its eight legs back and forth before it leaped at the fly.

The spider hit the fly, all arms and fangs, with enough force to take both arthropods off the edge of the Colman. To my surprise, neither predator nor prey hit the ground. As the spider left the cooler top, it let out a single strand of web attached to the spot from which it jumped. The spider climbed the thread and feasted on the fly until my beer was empty.

Maybe that’s where my head was as I sprayed. I saw a green flash on the eave and let go of the trigger that metered the flow through the spray nozzle. A large praying mantis stared down at me and wiped its eyes with its forelimbs.

I put the can down, reached up for the giant insect, and took her to a creek in the back of the house where I tried to rinse her of the poison. Her abdomen was large and full of eggs, and I suspected she was hunting for a safe spot to lay her brood. Despite my attempt to save her, it wasn’t long before her six legs curled in like a dead cockroach and stopped moving.