I have been finding green catapillers (sp?) on my brugs right and left...small, immature ones. Then I found a GREAT big one with black markings and a big black horn on its rear end. F L U S H down the loo it went....hehehehehe!
Then, this morning on the car radio there is a report about the Batwing Sphinx Moth...(I have seen them around) with a wingspan of 5-6 inches...declared an 'endangered species in Hawaii.....Ooooops...and the catapiller is green with a big black horn on its rear and it feeds on Solanaceae.
Please don't tell the Feds!...I promise I will simply relocate them....to Alaska!!!
Carol
HAHAHAHA - OOOOOPS
LOL Carol....you're a hoot!!!! I don't like them either, not matter how endangered they are. They cause way toooo many problems around here.
I sure hope you at least named it before you flushed it, Carol.
Anything that goes after our Brugs is going to be ENDANGERED!!
This message was edited Aug 17, 2005 7:46 AM
Don't worry Carol only 1700+ DG'ers know your secret! lol! Now he is the Batroom Sphinx Moth. You can still name him Sir Dookey the turd (I mean third). Hope he doesn't crawl up out of the toilet when you least expect it :)
LOL Carol & Vicki!!!!!
*spewing coffee*!!!!!!!
Carol, I'd have probably done the same thing if it was eating my Brugs. LOL
Too funny, Vicki. LOL
Carol did you know that I belong to the hug a hornworm club? I'm begging you please to have compassion on the future hornworms you find. Before you ship them to Alaska at least be kind enough to adjust them to their future climate. Is a few days in the freezer before you ship to much to ask from you? :)
Vicki ROFLMBO!!!!!! yOU ARE A HOOT VICKI!!!!
hehehehehehehehehehehehe..........
Or at least knit them some little sweaters.
Carol that is FUNNY,
I killed a large green worm (cutter worm) on my tomatoes then felt so bad because I found out they turn into Hummingbird moth, my daughter said in Illinois they have a lot of them, and the reason we don't is because the farmers spray to kill the worm. DAAAAAHHHHH
You all are too much!!! (Tea splatters covering my desk and choking, here).They can have a leaf or three...no problem...but when they start peeling my plants...I draw the line...no sweaters, no earmuffs, no nuttin! Off they go to the neighbours!!!
I like the Moths...they fly and look like bats...and they do a lot of pollinating!!!
I am finding a new critter on one brug...I keep killing it and another one is there the next morning: it is called a pseudoslug...tiny with a hump on its' back. Dreadfully enough, it carries Rat Lung Virus which is like Meningitis...if we buy vegies from farmers we have to carefully disinfect all the leafy ones...just like in 3rd World Countries. I soak all the vegies in Microdyne for 20 mins. Nothing like living on the edge!!!
You are kidding? You can't eat veggies right off the vine so to speak? So the leaves have the disease on them and you can catch it by eating the leaf?
I think we should have a moment of silence for the dearly departed worm. May he swim in peace.
You can triple that for the 3 pseudoslugs I killed this morning!
Kell...Beans, tomatoes etc. you can eat off the vine...but these nasties like to hide in lettuce, kale etc. and you can get the disease by eating their poop/slime if it isn't washed off. (The thrills of living in paradise!!). This is only from home grown stuff... Mostly lettuce is grown hydroponically around here - too many bugs to deal with for the average JOE and hydroponic is terrific!!! On the boat we got used to the disinfecting routine...so it isn't a big deal!
Between the leaf hoppers, slugs, fungal gnats, birds...I only grow string beans...and fruit and some herbs.
Going out with my machete to hunt slugs!!
Carol
You Wrote: On the boat we got used to the disinfecting routine...so it isn't a big deal!
Can I be nosey and ask for details? Sounds like something I would want to hear. I always thought I wanted to live on a houseboat for awhile, but parked on a lazy river in Arkansas.
Judy
Sure...it is kinda a neat story. Anyway:
When I was about 20 I decided I was going to have a sailboat and sail around the world....and the dream got sidetracked by life until I moved to Seattle in 1974...single mother, working my buns off, supporting myself and son...you know...typical story. At about 40 years old I realized...hey...I have this dream!!! Seattle is a BIG sailing town so I began taking lessons in little Prams, then I taught sailing in little Prams, then I got my PADI license so I could dive if I had to. Still no boat....but....
I started sailing on other people's boats for the experience...racing. I would sail on anyboat and go anywhere just for the experience. Finally got on the biggest sexiest boat (I thought) in the fleet and crewed on her for 10 years. My learning curve went straight UP. At 50 I met my husband who had just returned from sailing around the world (on his own) for 5 years... We clicked. He sold his boat and we both worked like heck to make enough money to buy another boat and take off. In 1993 we got married and bought our boat, a Westsail 43. We spent the next year fixing her up for blue water sailing (out in the ocean) and in l994 we quit our jobs and took off a week later: Seattle thru BC to Alaska...all the way to Kodiak. Then down to SF...down the CA coat to Mexico, down the coast of Mexico to Panama (stopping along the way, of course). From Panama to Ecuador to Chile where we spent 18 months cruising the Patagonian channels, then across to the South Pacific via Juan Fernandez Islands, Easter Island, Pitcairn Island...the Australs, French Polynesia, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, New Zealand again, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caladonia and Australia. We did this in 6 years...spending lots of time (for us). After 6 years we decided that we had too many more adventures to do in our lives, so in 2000 we sold the boat, sold the house in Seattle in 2001 and moved to Hawaii.
I tell this long version because dreams DO come true...I just had to work at it!!! Bob is like the sailor who put his oar over his shoulder and walked inland until someone asked him what he was carrying! He has taken to the land like a duck to water...has no interest in even seeing the ocean again. I am a water baby...I LOVE the ocean...but no desire to sail any more. We travelled a lot from our boat ...thru Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, around Australia...but essentially we lived on 12 square feet of floor space and small cupboards for all that time. It was wonderful!!! We actually went into places that had never seen a sailboat before in Fiji...the kids had never seen a white person...we were adopted and shared in their daily lives...doing laundry with soap and a brush on a cement slab and a bucket of water, etc. Makes humble hearts out of all of us. I did laundry in streams, under waterfalls and in the cockpit of the boat....I love my washing machine!!!
The longest we were out sailing was the 34 day passage from Ecuador to Chile... Finding a frozen chicken anywhere was like mana from heaven...I have had my life's ration of corned beef and canned chicken. NEVER EVER ate Spam...there are limits, you know!!!
Carol
Carol,
Love your sailing story !! What an adventure.
Karen
Wow, Carol! What a WONDERFUL DREAM! Congratulations for having the fortitude to do it! I wish I were that brave!
Kay
What a beautiful adventurous life and how fortunate you were to find someone to share your dream with! Thanks so much for sharing it!
Thanks for being interested. It was a life in a totally 'other' dimension from any I have every known...including this one. We fell in love with this part of Hawaii because it reminded us of parts of Fiji on steroids!!! NOT first world by any stretch!!
It must be true love if you both were on such a small boat for so many months alone together and you both survived. I think my husband might have had the urge to toss me overboard a time or 2 if we were off together in such close quarters. Esp when I picked up all those tropical plants all along the way!!
What a great life. You did what you wanted to do!!
Yup...it was a challenge at times!!! They say that siuation accelerates a relationship by a factor of 4...
Once, in the Chilean channels, we were tied down in a tiny little hole during big storms for 7 days. We couldn't even go outside...lines to trees, 3 anchors down and the wind howled and the rain came down in sheets!!! I think we spoke 10 words per day, did our own thing and I started to hide the pointy things in the kitchen just before the rain stopped! We had a little diesel furnace...it was over Christmas.... I made a Turkey Loaf for Christmas dinner. It was awful..but it was turkey and we had cranberry sauce!
On a boat...the boat always comes FIRST...the next two are debateable!!!
Gosh...my spelling is awful!
Great story, Carol!! Does your son love sailing too?
Glad I popped in here Carol. Great stuff and I can relate. Well.. kind of. I just didn't do it on a sailboat. My longest time without setting foot on land was 123 days. So tell me about the fishing on that long haul. If I was trolling off those Destroyers, I know you had to have a blast on that sail boat. My wildest was hooking up with a giant tuna in rough weather at 10kts in the gulf of Oman. We were transiting to the the Persian Gulf so I couldn't ask to stop the ship. Just about spooled my Penn 9.0 before someone brought a bucket of water and started dousing the smoking reel. It was too late. It suddenly locked up and 'We' held on until I finally broke off. After the reel cooled down and I dismantled I found a gear got brittle with the heat and sheared some teeth. Screeeech!
Kell - all of our kids joined us at some point. Yes, he likes to sail but isn't a 'sailor'!!!
Blaine - what an experience!!! A bit hard fighting a big fish going 10knts. If it wasn't rough, we dragged a 'meat line' - really thick line, big hook and lure. This was for dinner, not sport! Albacore, Yellow Fin, Wahoo and MahiMahi (Dorado) were the usuals...SkipJack Tuna was too fishy and we threw it back. I hated catching fish: the deck where the fish is landed and cut up gets bloody and fishy and the smell never seems to go away. I AM a 'Princess' at heart! We often lost line and lures/hooks to big fish (Shark?) that simply bit thru it. The biggest we ever caught was a 55"long Wahoo...it was bigger than the cockpit!!
Nothing like OT!
Yum Yum! Hey, that Wahoo or King Mackerel can slice your line if you don't have steel leaders. What'd you do, just drag 'em till they started skipping along the top? 10kts was ideal but I trolled many times at 20kts. Lost any with real size but boated a lot of Kings and small tuna. The trick was as soon as you could get them on top to crank like H--- and surf 'em in across the waves. Really had to horse 'em in. If they sounded and got any depth at that speed I had to try and stop the run and drag until the hooks pulled, something broke or the fish popped back up. I had to cut a lot of them loose during transits too. It'd be like snagging a volkswagen going the opposite direction.
If you want to freak out tourists, as soon as you land a shark and dispatch it. Filet it immediately and lay that big steak right there on the rail. That piece of meat will just twitch and quiver. Nottttttt quite dead yet. :)
We did pull in some drowned fish once in a while...had to watch the line. It did have a thick steel leader!!!
In my next life I will have the guts to go for it like you did!! I love it that you had these experences!!I love the ocean and have a friend who was adrift 9 days. I'm so glad to hear of your experiences!! Enjoy living in Eden!!
Bonnie
You ladies are a riot!! :)
I got hairy legs and still think it's fun to ask the kids to "pull my finger". what about me? :)
(kids have blown me off for years but every now and then I catch the DW not thinking and she'll do it. heh hehe)