u/cryoflower

Hello! I got the aloe on the right as a tiny little $4 plant almost a decade ago. Since then. she's had several babies and even survived root rot and fully recovered. The two on the left are two of her children grown up, and they are all making pups!! I don't mind having all the extra little guys since there's always people to give them to, but will the big ones just keep growing and growing? I live in Southern California so they absolutely love the heat and sun here.

I keep them on a balcony and can't transfer them to the ground, and their pots are already really heavy and I don't want to upgrade them. In the past, I have been harvesting their leaves from the bottom up to keep them smaller, but I know it creates this sort of "naked" stem and I worry they might become too top-heavy. Do you just have to regularly repot them lower in the soil, or will the stem be able to support itself? Thanks!

A little over a week ago, I found a very weak Johnson's Jumping Spider in the street right outside of my door. They're fairly common in my area, and I've seen a few in the past right on my street. I picked her up and she had a lot of trouble hanging onto my finger and one of her legs even seemed like it wasn't working well, and she had a shriveled abdomen. I had a bug tank set up already (I'm raising some caterpillars), so I figured it wouldn't hurt to put her in.

I have a compost bin so I tried catching some small flies from there, but she wouldn't eat them (dead or alive). I did give her a cotton ball soaked with water, which she drank from! A few hours later, I found her upside down in a death curl and was sure that was the end. I was busy that day though, so I figured I'd take care of that later. To my surprise, when I came back at night, she had moved! I tried releasing her that night (around the compost bin), but she was still very weak and even fell off the side of the bin and onto her back, so I put her back inside.

Over the next few days, she still wouldn't eat, but would drink water, and seemed to regain her strength every day. In the beginning, she's just lay in one spot for the whole day, but after a while, she started to hide underneath the paper towel I had laid out, and seemed interested in exploring. I went to the pet store and bought a temporary enclosure for her and some feeder bugs (dubias and waxworms). I tried feeding her all of the above (plus the flies from before), but never saw her take any of them, but it also seemed like she was afraid of my tweezers. I did cut a waxworm in half for her, too. She was pretty active and explored her enclosure quite a bit.

The next day, I still couldn't find evidence she ate, but she was very active and was even trying to climb the walls. (She was never able to - not sure if this was an indication of her health or if maybe it's something her species has trouble with. But she had no issue climbing sticks and etc.) Figuring she seemed well enough to leave and since I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to feed her, I decided to re-release her, though onto my balcony plants so she'd hopefully have bugs around (and she'd be safer than in the street). Looking back at the photos, her abdomen does seem bigger so she probably did eat when I wasn't looking. I came back to check after a few hours and she had left to go off on her next adventure.

I was actually really sad for several days after re-releasing her because she really captured my heart and I just thought she was the cutest little thing. It was really rewarding seeing her come back to life after I was totally sure she had died. At the end of the day though, she was a wild animal who was ready to leave and I didn't have the confidence to take care of her, so I know I did the right thing. But I've still been looking at pictures of her on my phone because I miss her 😭 I named her Ember, because she was reddish-orange, but also she only had a tiny spark of life left, but it was enough to rekindle her inner fire!

Anyways, I hoped you guys enjoyed this story and I just figured my fellow jumper lovers would relate :') Now I really want to get a pet jumper from a breeder or something! In the meantime, I've been keeping the dubias as pets since my husband thinks they're cute. Hah!