There is a GIGANTIC spider living in my yard

I've named her Rowena....Rowena Ragno(Italian for spider!!) She is HUGE, and she might be dead because she hasn't moved in the last 2 days since I "discovered" her. I'll let you know if she goes MIA once of these days, I hope to god she doesn't have babies because I don't think I could handle it!!!! I can't kill her either because she really isn't doing me any harm hanging out in the bush. I took an up close picture of her with my zoom lens.

Ok so this is the bush where Rowena lives near the back stairs, and Rowena herself crazy web hey!?

We also have a fig tree in our backyard, its a BIG fig tree and I have NO idea what to do with figs!!!! Brandy and Harry(who works with Richard) live in the same complex as us and are from Texas, and apparently Brandy knows what to do with figs so I'm inviting her over for a fig picking party!!!!!!
Seriously if anyone has any great recipes that have figs in it PLEASE let me know!!!!!!!!!

Other than the gigantic spider and the crazy figs I absolutely love it here. Its hotter than hell here but I feel like I'm on vacation in Mexico or something and when it gets too overwhelming I turn on the AC :)

The language barrier is frustrating at times but we usually manage to make it work, and I'm now carrying around my little Italian dictionary with me and once I get 3G hooked back up to the phone then itranslate will also help me out :) I managed to understand from the man at the greenhouse who spoke NO English the other day that lemon scented geraniums/citronella plants are only sold in the Spring here, and sometimes you can get them into early july but they are always all gone by August!! I was pretty proud of myself for understanding that! The bugs here are pretty bad, we're near rice paddies so the mosquitos are horrific. The wasps are better now that I put up the fake wasps nests but apparently there are horseflies....*BASTARDS* And I went screaming from one yesterday that was dive bombing me while I raked the lawn!!!!

WOW...and a freaking HAWK or Falcon or something just landed on the neighbours roof!!!!! All the birds went crazy and then this big thing swooped in!!!

I love living in the country!!! And to put our village in perspective, its about as big as Abercrave in Wales, and about as big as maybe......Balzac or Delburne in Alberta....about 10-15 streets in total, very small ones, not a lot of people, no grocery store!!! Milano 3 is bigger and is the next town down the road within walking distance.

AND, while I'm on a roll. We found out that the only thing we should be scared about here in northern Italy other than Rowena(actually I don't think she's poisonous) are Ticks and VIPERS............yeah you read that right...FREAKING VIPERS. Apparently all the pharmacies carry anti-venom and the bite is not instantly deadly(lovely) so Richard has now taken to wearing his "viper boots" when mowing the lawn!!!!! And any strange noise we hear..."must be the vipers" hahahahahahhaa