Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Bugs!

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. ~Thomas Jefferson

Okay ... many of you (especially gardeners!) expressed some, shall we say, surprise at the fact that we're raising tomato hornworms.

The main reason I'm doing so is because of the amazing moth it becomes. Beautiful and incredible to watch, I give you -- the Hummingbird Moth:





Yesterday, inside one of the jars, I found the tiniest little mama crab spider carrying the tiniest little bitty egg sac (if not for her egg sac, I probably wouldn't have seen her at all). She couldn't stay there, so I scooped her out and put her and her eggs outside. She was SUCH a good mama... she held the sac with her to hindmost legs, and once as she was trying to get away, the sac came loose. You could tell she wanted to run (she probably thought I was going to eat her!) but she scurried back for her eggs anyway, picked them up and moved away.

I know, I know you're all thinking: spider? But nature is incredibly amazing (if brutal) and if you take time to just WATCH sometimes I think you'd be swept away by its beauty.

Most of my day, however, was spent deep cleaning. Why? Because Sunday night I found a cockroach! UGH!! We generally don't see them up here, though they can live here, and we've NEVER seen them in our house. It was an American Cockroach and after some research we found that the German Cockroach is what usually lives here. Our assumption is that it hitchhicked in on some imported (from California or Florida) produce).

My house is pretty dang clean, but it can always be cleaner. So I pulled out the appliances and scrubbed the floors, emptied the pantry and scrubbed, emptied my cupboards and scrubbed. Then I deployed more than a dozen roach bait traps.

Despite my love for nature, I do draw the line at cockroaches (mostly because they try to live in my house... :::shudders:::).

I wasn't online but an hour or two yesterday, and today is my Mom's birthday, so my online time will be reduced as well. Hopefully, tomorrow things will mostly be back to normal.

Have a great day!

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You Are Dominant



You take on huge projects and see them through. You lead the way when it comes to success.

You are a leader and a good one too. You are as fair as you can be.

You have a defiant streak. If someone tells you that you can't do something, it makes you that more determined.

You are impulsive when the occasion calls for it. You make decisions on the fly.



About 75% right

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4 comments:

Sarita Leone said...

EEK! I saw a cockroach while I was in Florida and screeched. I can take most bugs but they just freak me out.

Eww.

The good side is that your house is spotless now! I love a freshly cleaned house.

I hope today is peaceful for you. No weird bugs!

Judy said...

Cockroaches can also come in on boxes, etc. They love the glue on them. Storing things in cardboard boxes in the south is a big no... draws the things like honey draws flies.

Dru said...

Don't like cockroaches, especially the ones that flies.

Happy Birthday to your mom!

re quiz: same as yours and it is not me.

Have a great Tuesday.

Brandy said...

Ye God! I hate cockroaches. *shudder* And they're worse here (especially in MS). We also have Palmetto bugs/water bugs. Think roaches on steroids that fly. Gah. Oh, and they LOVE pine trees and when we lived in MS we were told NOT to use a pine scented cleaner.

Happy Birthday to Marianne's Mom!

You Are Self-Assured: You value truth and justice. You are impartial, and you believe in treating people equally.
You are principled and conscientious. You try to behave as virtuously as possible.
You want every one of your days to mean something. You don't waste your energy on things that don't matter.
You couldn't be someone else even if you tried! You're simply you - and thank goodness for that.

About 90% correct, though I don't agree that that means I'm self-assured.

Hope you have a good day!