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BS: Negotiatin' with Insects...
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Subject: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Bobert Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:40 PM First of all, this is a real story... I've got a 5 acre field that was purdy grown up mostly in grasses but also an area with these 5 to 6 foot tall weeds so... ... I hooked up the bush-hog to the Kubuta today, took me some bottled water and went to war with that 5 acres... The outer parts is all grass so it cut real nicely but as I made one loop aftre another with each being 5 feet closer to the middle of the field, I noticed that there was a lot more bug activity... This field has probably as fina an assortment of butterflies, bees, and flying bugs as yer gonna find anywhere and 'bout 3 hours into the job I found myself more and more being swarmed with angry bugs... Even the lovely swallow-tails and monarchs were perturbed>>> "Like, hey, what am doing to make you all so aggitated?", I thought to myself... Just then one of them black and white bumble bees hit me square in the forehead... He didn't sting ot bite but, hey, I knew I'd been hit, gol dang it... So during my next lap around the field I looked real close at that weedy patch in the middle and it was lit up with butterfieas of all kinds.. Those samll white ones the usually fliiter in pairs were fliiterin' in groups of 20 'er 30... And those small blackish butterflies with the yellow spots were everywhere flittin' from one weed flower to the next and all kinds of flying stuff was flyin' in and around my face, landing on my arms and so... ...it came to me that what I was doing was takin' away their habitat one lap at a time!!! Thinking back on some of the scarey movies I saw as a kid where bugs would take over entire cities I figurated that maybe a settlement was in order and so I changed my bash-hoggin patterns to protect that section of weeds that seemd to be where they wanted to make their stand and went about just bush-hoggin' the rest of the field.. Now I know that some folks ain't gonna believe this but soon as I decided that I was going to leave their weed patch intact, they left me alone to finish bush-hoggin' the other parts of the field... Yes, the same criiters who ahd been buzzin' me for hours just let me be!!! Wierd... But glad to have it worked out with the bugs tonight... Imagine they are, as well... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Sorcha Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:39 PM Thank you Bobert. The critters need their space too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: GUEST,Jon Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:32 PM Not really negotiation but a threat. I've on more than one occasion said to a wasp that has got to near my drink "F*** off wasp, or die" but they have taken no heed of the warning. Best one I read was one on cockchafers. I found this on wikipedia: "In the Middle ages, pest control was rare and people had no effective means to protect their harvest. This gave rise to events that seem completely ludicrous from a modern perspective. In 1320, for instance, cockchafers were brought to court in Avignon and sentenced to withdraw within three days onto a specially designated area, otherwise they'd be outlawed. Of course, the cockchafers didn't obey, and were collected and killed." As for your's Bobert. sounds a good approach to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: frogprince Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:01 PM "Cockchafers"? I thought this was about insects! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Ron Davies Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:02 PM Good for you, Bobert. Humans don't have to be the ONLY ones in the ecosystem. Makes it a boring ecosystem, too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: GUEST Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:08 PM Spray the area and walls with the old cattle standard.
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: GUEST,Jon Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:13 PM "Cockchafers"? I thought this was about insects! yep |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Bobert Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:18 PM Fine lookin' specimen, Jon, but the critters 'round here are a tad on the buggier side... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: GUEST,Jon Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:27 PM What do you mean by "a tad on the buggier side", Bobert? (It may be an Americanism and I'm UK). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: John MacKenzie Date: 24 Jun 06 - 05:43 AM Cut the brush earlier, or later Bobert, then the bugs can have a ball, and so can you. Giok |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Les from Hull Date: 24 Jun 06 - 09:02 AM Would that be an 'ugly bug ball'? (song reference from my childhood) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: John MacKenzie Date: 24 Jun 06 - 09:06 AM Bobert is a good lookin' Sidewalk sort of guy, and he is going to buy me a drink at the Getaway in November! G.. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Bobert Date: 24 Jun 06 - 09:49 AM Yez I is gonna buy you a drink, John, but don't tell nobody 'cuase we ain't 'sposed to have no alcohol at the new camp... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Stilly River Sage Date: 24 Jun 06 - 12:03 PM We were experiencing a Junebug shortage here until last week when the rain brought them out. The dogs eat the bugs in the back yard, and the toads have all moved around to the side of the house (where the dogs can't pick them up and carry them around) and eat Junebugs under the porchlight. A fine entertainment here is to position ourselves a little way back from the step by that door and catch Junebugs and toss them toward the toads. We have four of them (at last count) that have inhabited a loosely walled-in area I built last year. That door is where the garage door used to be, so the pots are on top of an old driveway section, and the low wall keeps the sun off of the pots of a couple of dozen plants that dried out too fast in the direct sun. When you walk out the door you hear small critters scrambling in there. Some of them are toads. Considering that the backyard habitat next to the house has been compromised by canines, it seems the least we can do to give an alternative space. And those toads are great to watch--they make a little move then the bug is gone--the tongues are so quick I don't think I've ever actually seen that part. Good for you, Bobert, in accomodating the critters on the land. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: LilyFestre Date: 24 Jun 06 - 12:50 PM Hey Bobert, We bush hogged our field about 2 years ago and now we have more blackberry bushes than you can imagine...about 10 acres of field on this side of the woods and at least half of it is dense blackberries...are you mowing just because or are you going to do something with the field? Michelle |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Les from Hull Date: 24 Jun 06 - 06:27 PM A cockchafer about a foot long came through the train window in Thailand and landed on girlfirend Maggie's lap. (OK I exagerate a little but it was BIG.) She reacted with remarkable aplomb, as she said 'I don't suppose these things are dangerous, at all?' I just didn't know they could get that big. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: John MacKenzie Date: 24 Jun 06 - 06:47 PM Not the first time I've heard a girl say that! G |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Bobert Date: 24 Jun 06 - 07:09 PM Unfortunately, Michelle, I've subdivided off about 7.6 acres of my 17 acres and am building a new house on the 5 open acres to sell in order to retire the debt I had to take on when we moved here... Blackberries, you say??? We have a few growing along the drive way but mostly just raspberries which are plantiful when they come in which if we don't get some decent rain is gonna be questionable... The balckberries are ripe but real small from the drought... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: CarolC Date: 24 Jun 06 - 08:11 PM I'm glad you left that patch for the critters, Bobert. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: *daylia* Date: 25 Jun 06 - 10:49 AM Now I know that some folks ain't gonna believe this but soon as I decided that I was going to leave their weed patch intact, they left me alone to finish bush-hoggin' the other parts of the field... Yes, the same criiters who ahd been buzzin' me for hours just let me be!!! Wow -- you too Bobert? After what happened to me a few weeks ago I have no problems believing you! I've always had a few wasps buzzin round my back porch, and they never really bothered me. I never get stung -- I just ignore them and they've always returned the favour. But early this spring they'd become a real nuisance. Built a nest under the back porch shingles -- and now I had to contend with literally dozens and dozens of them flying about just outside the door every day. They got so thick I couldn't even tend my flowers or relax in the sun for a minute or two without having a few of them bouncin off my head, landing on my chair etc. Well, I struggled for a few weeks with the idea of killing them. That really goes against my principles -- when it comes to Nature, I've always opted for the 'live and let live', 'do unto others...' approach as much as possible. I really abhor having to kill anything, even bugs! Dragged myself to Canadian Tire and checked out the sprays, couldn't get myself to buy one. Hummed and hawed for another week or so, but when they started conglomerating in my kitchen every time I opened the back door, I knew I was beat. Or rather, they were. They do have the right to live too, but this is MY YARD and MY HOUSE, see? That day I asked my parent's handyman about the best sprays and methods, listened carefully to his advice. And resolved, as I went to bed that night, to buy the spray and do the dirty deed the very next morning. Got up the next morning, still resolute in my decision. Went outside to give the situation a final check and guess what? THEY WERE GONE! And they've stayed GONE! 8-O That was a month ago. I think I've seen ONE measly wasp in the backyard since. And absolutely none crawling in and out of that formerly infested hole under the shingles. I swear they must have 'heard' me somehow! Maybe bugs are ruled by some kind of 'higher mind' that can tune into human feelings, thoughts and intentions. WHo knows? We think we are so smart with all our science and 'higher logic', but I think that when all's said and done we really know diddley-squat about Nature. And about Life. It's quite the buzz thinking we know it all, though! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: *daylia* Date: 25 Jun 06 - 11:52 AM Egads, speak o' the devil I just went out back and there's 4, count'em 4 winged things buzzin round that stupid hole - or rather, those stupid holes -- under the shingles. They look different than the wasps. Blacker. I think they're hornets. Egads. Higher mind or no higher mind I think I better plug the holes somehow .... hmmmm .... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: GUEST,Jon Date: 25 Jun 06 - 12:07 PM I saw this horrible wasp, last year I think. It's was well over an inch long and it had the biggest sting I'd ever seen... Apparently is was only a wood wasp/ horntail, quite harmless, and the "sting" was an ovipostitor. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Mr Red Date: 26 Jun 06 - 02:32 AM consult Dr Doolittle |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: JohnInKansas Date: 26 Jun 06 - 08:53 PM Bobert says - butterfieas of all kinds.. Those samll white ones the usually fliiter in pairs One must be very careful about those small white ones. A few years ago in the Seattle area I encountered a fellow employee who had just received a notice from the State Ag Department that her horse pasture had "tansy" growing in it. In Washington State, "tansy" is classed as a "noxious weed" and she was ordered to destroy it immediately or face a fine of $10,000 or more. As this was the third consecutive year in which she had received the same notice, she indicated that she was waiting for the inevitable and expected notice from the US Forestry Service which would (based on two prior such notices) inform her that "tansy" is the preferred food and nesting place for "an endangered little white butterfly" that was entering its breeding season; and that any failure on her part to protect her "tansy" would result in a fine of $40,000 or more. You may have avoided inadvertent reduction of habitat for incredibly valuable wildlife. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Bunnahabhain Date: 26 Jun 06 - 09:01 PM Great delight can be had in sending copies of the letters from the one department to the other, or similar things After a while, they generally move you into the awkward file, and leave you alone most of the time, and respond a little better if you go to them with something, as someone there knows it'll be easier that way.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Jun 06 - 09:09 PM Daylia...that place under your shingles is a natural home for hornets, wasps, bees, yellowjackets. If one lot leave, another lot are quite likely to move in in short order. I strongly suggest you hire your local handyman to spray some insecticide in, and then plug up those holes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: dianavan Date: 26 Jun 06 - 09:12 PM My uncle said the best way to grow food organically is to plant enough for you and the bugs, too. I guess that applies to what you have done, bobert. Good on ya. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Negotiatin' with Insects... From: JohnInKansas Date: 26 Jun 06 - 09:49 PM Bunnahabhain - Sending the letters from each to the other is exactly what my Seattle friend had been doing, and expected to continue; but it doesn't really solve anything. It just postpones it until it starts over the next time. John |
