Hubby and I watched two PBS programs about insects. While bugs are definitely not my thing, it was fascinating to learn that dragonflies lived underwater for 4-5 years before emerging as the flying insects we know and maybe some of you love. They only live a week or two above water, mating, laying their eggs, and dying. Who knew they had such a life cycle?
Praying mantises are one of the few bugs I don’t mind having around (others are roly-polies, ladybugs, and butterflies). There are many kinds of mantises all over the world. One even looks like the petals of an orchid, and one looks like a dead leaf that shakes on the twig.
Beetles are very pretty and fun to look at, but I wouldn’t want to hold one. They come in all kinds of shapes and colors and do odd things like roll dung balls with their hind legs, sometimes with their mates clinging to it. In Thailand, they have rhino beetle fights. The losers are released into the wild, and the winners are spoiled rotten. Seems like a very eco-friendly sport.
Insects on the TV screen hold more fascination for me than those in my yard, in my home, or in my bed. When we were little and had been gone over the weekend, we all checked our bedcovers for scorpions. Found one occasionally When Hubby and I were first married and living in a mobile home, I reached inside the closet for a broom and my hand hit a spider web. I thrashed my hand around to take it down and reach the broom. When I put the broom back, the web was back. I thrashed it away again, then got the flashlight to see what kind of critter was doing that. It was a giant black widow spider. I jumped back and screamed for Hubby to come kill it.
That triggered another memory of dressing our cute little toddler on her bed one morning. We played there for a minute or two and for some reason, we looked up at the ceiling. Over her bed in the corner, was a giant wolf spider watching us. I have no idea how long it had been there. I didn’t even look for a message in its web that might have said Some Pig or Humble or Please let me live here. I didn’t care if it had a name. I got my daughter out of there, got the vacuum cleaner and sucked him off his web. I felt its body hitting the sides of the metal wand as he went down it and into the dust bag. I set the vacuum, the wand, and the end out in the back yard. I was afraid that spider would attack me if I emptied the bag. I made Hubby take care of it after he got home from work.
And that’s how I feel about insects. If they stay outside my house, I let them live. If they come inside, they must have a death wish because me and my vacuum will be looking for the intruders. And Hubby is still emptying the bags.
There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands; The spider takes hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces. Proverbs 30:24-28