Eucalyptus bark dye pots

At the end of the year, my sisters and I were out walking and gathered some E Polyanthemos bark.  This is a purely speculative dye pot.  And it has been waiting in a cardboard box.  I moved it to a dye pot and came out next day to add water.  Do you see what I see?

Yes, it’s a redback spider!  She got away from me before I could get her out of the pot, so I put the lid back on and left it for another day.  I don’t want to kill her this way.

Finally I got back to the pot and couldn’t find the redback, but she appeared as the water level rose and I managed to get her out without putting my fingers in!

Here are the pots prior to heating. E  Polyanthemos in the foreground and E Scoparia in the back.