Someone decided to leave some eggs on my bedroom window. They’re on the outside, which I appreciate.
I wonder what will come from them? Perhaps something nice. Perhaps something nasty.
Being a human, I am not too concerned about nasty, since I am generally the nastiest thing around any given place (unless you count bulldozers and backhoes).
One of the fun things about living on the farm is the cycles of populations. About 2009, I started having huge waves of beetles that looked like ladybugs (but weren’t) They got in the house and every morning my routine came to incorporate vacuuming up a few dozen of them out of my kitchen. This continued year-round until this spring. Suddenly there were no more beetles. It took me a fairly short while to figure out what was cleaning up the beetle supply.
Since they’re not interested in coming into the house, I think we have a deal. Basement snake helps keep down the mice, Porch wasps keep down the other bugs, Orb Weavers keep down what they keep down, Crows pick up the larger pieces of waste, and Skunk gets the grubs from the lawn. Elk and deer fertilize the lawn and make it slippery, and Bunny rabbit and deer eat the cilantro every time I plant some. Then, something happens and the populations shift into a new configuration – the rabbit population (which was virtually nonexistent) has gone way up since my dogs got out of the the dog business. Will something come eat the wasps?
Next year’s summer project may be building a small greenhouse. I need tomatoes and cilantro and I am sick of negotiating with all of my symbiotes.
Someone once described someone as “having the morals of a wasp” – which I thought was pretty good. Except wasps are just doing their thing; they are what evolution made them be. I would say “having the morals of Mitch McConnell” but it’s depressing to know there’s already one of those.
Negotiating with the neighbors when they are determined to devour your stuff can be impossible… I think you do have to resort to using your super powers: opposing thumbs and a big brain. So yeah, a greenhouse is in order to save the cilantro. We had to do something similar with the chickens. There is a national forest across the street and it seems like everything that lives there likes chicken for dinner, so the coop and run look like a prison. It works, though – when I get up in the morning the flock is all there.
That farm sounds like a deathtrap, at least if you’re small and multi-legged … or cilantro. It’s all a matter of perspective though.
Gorgeous wasp nest.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘small’ in terms of a greenhouse Marcus, but eveybody that I know who has one wants a bigger one.
jazzlet@#3:
I don’t know what you mean by ‘small’ in terms of a greenhouse Marcus, but eveybody that I know who has one wants a bigger one.
I was thinking 10×20. One of those glass kit ones that you assemble yourself and curse yourself for buying.
komarov@#2:
That farm sounds like a deathtrap, at least if you’re small and multi-legged … or cilantro. It’s all a matter of perspective though.
Pretty much no matter how you slice it, the cilantro is doomed.
Morals of a Wasp: Work hard with your mates gathering food and materials for the nest. Unity and bravery in defense of the nest. Sting if you feel threatened, otherwise live and let live. So far as I know, they don’t steal or cheat their mates, they don’t war with other hives, they’re generally upstanding citizens.