Friday 22 June 2018

Invaders

This year we're suffering from a plague of locusts, indoors.
Locust, grasshopper, praying mantis, anything that hops and jumps



This little fellow kept me company as I wrote on the computer.  He didn't move for hours and I had to wiggle a pencil at him till he waggled his feelers and show a sign of life


This chappy was frightened when I cleaned the floor and hopped out to complain at my rude interruption


One of his cousins was having a stroll across the clothes on the ironing board

We've got used to sharing the house with them now but I still give a startled yell when one jumps out of a t-shirt slung over the back of a chair and lands in my face or scuttles down my back

Every year we seem to be invaded by some branch of the insect family.  This year we also have a lot of smaller spiders which scurry into corners but don't annoy.  Last year it was daddy-long-legs.

One year it was wasps.  We couldn't sit outside and eat or drink which was bad news in midsummer when we  live and sleep outdoors.  Dozens of wasps would zoom in on the table and cluster over any glass or plate.  In the end we learnt to burn a handful of greek coffee.  The smell and smoke warded them off but it didn't make for a pleasant meal.   We stayed inside with the aircon on during the day for a month or so.


These nasty things with long dangly legs are called 'builders'.  They build mud like nests in the folds of curtains, in speaker boxes, in the wooden slats of the shutters.   

Then we had the year of the flies.  Flies everywhere, hundreds of them inside the house.  We couldn't get rid of them.  We sprayed and vaccumed them up and kept doors and screens shut tight but they infiltrated anyway.  The invasion lasted about a month and then thankfully they disappeared.

We've had the year of the frog, so many of them hopping over the road at night that you just couldn't help but run over a few of the poor things. 

The year of the midge, or some sort of small fly which swarmed in certain places along the mountain road.  I had a helmet that covered most of my face but had to keep one hand over my mouth when coming up the mountain on the quad bike so they didn't suddenly disappear down my throat.

The year of the hornet when they invaded the grape vines.  We had nasty great brown and yellow hornets dive bombing anything edible in the garden.

Snails.  So many of them eating in my garden I paid the grandchildren 5 cents a snail and they gathered bags of them.  I was going to prepare them for the pot but couldn't be bothered in the end and emptied them out in a field a long way from home.

We enjoy all the pleasures of living in the countryside!

11 comments:

  1. Ohhhh mercy!!!!!!

    I'm afraid some of those critters, would have driven me off the island!!!!

    Flies, wasps, midges, hornets! I'd never have made it through.

    But obviously, you are made of stronger stuff!!!!!!!! ,-)

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    1. At least it isn't rats and mice, although we did have a few of those running around a few years ago till we cemented over their doorway.

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  2. Those builder wasps are a pain. I heard the distinctive sound of one yesterday, but couldn't find it. We're used to finding those little earth nests almost anywhere.

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    1. I do the same, watch where they're going and try and see where they are thinking about f building. It's amazing where you find their nests after the summer clean out

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  3. Here I am, bags packed and ready to move to Poros, then I read this post. It was alright until i got to the 'scuttling down your back' part. Eeeek! I would have to turn to drink - and I don't drink!

    Most years we are bothered by houseflies, lots of them. This year we have two bags of fly soup hanging in the trees - the theory is that they smell horribly and attract the flies, they go in and are trapped. Three weeks on and I have to say we are only getting the occasional one indoors, which is a relief, the soup bag is filling up disgustingly though.

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    1. Ooh fly soup. At the beach they have bottles of sugar water hanging out for wasps. They get in but can't get out. Oh and fly papers which flies stick to...yuck!

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  4. At least you dont' have wetas there. I don't mind them so much, they're pretty harmless but in a house we rented a few years ago our clothes line was near trees and I use to find them in my clothes all the time, they sure do bite though.

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    1. Wetas! I had forgotten all about them. Didn't know they bite.

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    2. Ps at least it's not red back spiders on the toilet seat lol

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  5. Sounds like you get a lot of nasty invaders. I am sure the fantastic weather makes up for them though.

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    1. I hardly notice these creepy crawlers any more. Mosquitoes are the most annoying but they don't usually attack me

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