(Jessica Cornelison / KCUR 89.3)

How do you stop being so afraid? Tracy Twombly had such a strong phobia of spiders, it was messing with her life — stressing her out while she was working at her native plant nursery or hiking through the woods. So she embarked on a journey to make peace with her eight-legged neighbors (even the extra hairy ones). This is part one of a two-part series on getting over the fears that spoil our outdoor fun.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Peacock spiders doing disco semaphore (sound on)
• Eight-legged Wonders by James O'Hanlon

This episode was reported, produced and mixed by Celia Llopis-Jepsen. Up From Dust's editor is Mackenzie Martin.