Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A bug picking shangri-la: Revised

I love to pick things (have I already posted about this? Sorry if I have. Continue reading if you aren't bored with this topic). Skin, scabs, anything that seems incongruous with the skin or surface around something is good picking-material for me. I think it runs in the family.


Anyway. I've had a problem with bugs on my zucchini. They are creepy, blackish-grayish wanderers who hide until I come along with my water bucket and douse the zucchini. Then they come swarming out. They seem to like to attach themselves to each others bums and walk forward and backward. Creepy, right? In fact, this is what they look like:



I've been googling my bugs, and discovered they are squash bugs (seems logical: bugs on squash = squash bugs. Why didn't I think of that?). And they plant eggs on the backsides of the leaves of the plants. So I went out and found colonies of eggs living on my leaves. (See above. Yuck!) What to do? A further google search gave me this solution:


Duck tape.

And so tonight I tried it, even though I'd just got the kids in bed and the sun was completely set. Only the gloaming light was witness to my egg-picking frenzy. It's pretty easy: tear off a length of duck tape, find a leaf with a colony and stick it to 'em. The eggs come off pretty easily and stick to the tape. I probably didn't get them all, but I'm pretty sure that the worst offending leaves are egg-free.


At first, it was incredibly creepy, but by the end I kind of wished that there had been more because I started to enjoy myself. And as long as I don't see them all come swarming, full grown, out of my garbage can in a few days, I think I can consider it a job well done.


Am I weird that I found this satisfying? Because it totally was.

Revision: No, I don't have magically quacking tape at my house. It's DUCT tape. I didn't even think about it until one of my lovely readers pointed it out. I hope you all had a good laugh at my error; I did!

3 comments:

Jeanette said...

ok, first of all, you're nasty LOL

Second of all...Please oh please come do mine next!

Do you also have those little black beetles (Also constantly attatched at the bum) all over your holly hocks? We call them hump bugs because....well....that's what they look like they're doing, but anyway, there are millions of them on my holly hocks and no bug spray has worked yet *Sigh*

Amy Sorensen said...

O. My. Gosh.

I can't come back to your blog until that picture is further down and I can't see it. Because you have to know that it is TOTALLy freaking me out. Making my nose itch. My skin crawl. My shoulder blades shudder.

Ewwww. ewwww. ewwwww.

That said, I think it's hilarious that it was satisfying to you. I am too creeped out by the uniformity of the rows of eggs and the deeply-offensive (to me, the weirdo) texture they make to even start to imagine if *I* would be similarly satisfied.

I'll just continue on hating bugs.

Miss Becky said...

I must tell you, I do the same thing, and completely enjoy it. My name is Becky K. too.
One time a co-worker found out my middle initial is K and he tried to guess the name. He couldn't but came up with one that has since stuck ~ Becky Kitty.
I noticed your name in the comments at Poor Penmanship.
Nice to know you!
Have a beautiful day...