Grasshopper days of Summer?

Remember my x candida pink tree and all of it's flowers? Minor gusty winds cleaned her up pretty good from all the dead flowers. I was looking up into the tops of the tree this morning and thinking ...gosh it sure looks barren up there! And then I saw that almost every growing tip and leaf in the top of that tree has been chewed by grasshoppers! Those huge monster grasshoppers that look like small birds flying around.
Not only did they eat the top of that tree but I found these monsters by the herds in my plumies about a week ago. They did some pretty good damage to a couple of them but thank goodness I spotted them before it was major.

Never a dull moment in brug world! :)

So far, knock on wood, we don't have grass hoppers here at this time. They are hard to fight when living in the country. I think they are probably hard to fight anyplace. Our latest critter to drive me crazy is the cricket. I've had two of them in the house and they can really make a lot of noise when I'm trying to sleep.

Ah-Ha

I had one plant that looked like yours Vicki but assumed it was a horn worm.

Only thing was, it only happened to one plant and I never could find the HW.

We do have some big hoppers now.


Poor you Brugie, just try to think of them as Natures Symphony lulling you to sleep.

Scoot a hornworn would have done alot more damage to growing tips than this and it would be raggedy damage. Not so clean cut. He would have left serious scrape marks on your stems too.

Shirley just pull their legs off! Or maybe just pull one leg off of each one.

which shirley ,,, lol

didja know that killing a cricket in your house brings a year of bad luck to the home ?

didja know that pulling their legs off on the kitchen table brings peace to your house today? rofl

I'm with you on pulling a few legs Vicki. Although saying that in a certain other forum would probably have someone starting a whole thread about the serial killer cruelty of it all. They're for exercising your flick muscles too. Practice sneaking up on them, load your finger and BAM! If you've got any ant hills and need some real revenge... you can't always set that paraplegic hopper there. They'll certainly enjoy it.

Somehow I managed to change my 6 yearold terrorist tendencies. Those were the days I'd catch 'em and skewer them on the yucca plants out in the alley.

You were a bad boy Blaine. You still scare me :) Pretend you are 6 again. I need help to hold these grasshoppers down so I can pull their legs off.

Vicki, I don't think I could catch them right now. Maybe I could beat them to death with the crutches if I could find them. They usually seem to stay hidden. One in the kitchen was driving me nuts and I couldn't find it, so I sprayed around the cabinets in the area he was rubbing his legs together in and the next morning he was belly up. I got some sleep too. My biggest problem with brugs is the baby squirrels. They can remove the leaves and blooms quicker than a flash.

This message was edited Aug 26, 2005 1:33 PM

rofl Shirley!!

Hey, here's one for you. Get your wire cutters, a hanger, some rubberbands. You can make a miniature slingshot out of it. Another kid thing. We always shot paperclips, unfolded to a long neck J. You know them fat hoppers will sit there and look at you up to 2 or 3 feet. Plink 'em!!! If you tear a leaf in the process it's less damage than that bugger will inflict if left alone. Maybe get those new fluorescent colored paper clips. They'll be easy to pick up later.

lol, everybody!!

I'll spend the next few days doing a little target pratice off the back porch. Like the old redneck TN boys do. I loaded Ellis' shotgun ( you do just drop the bullets down that long pipe thing don't you?) and I'm sitting in my rocking chair. Got a good chaw going and 12 pk of moonshine .... I'm prepared. Hope my yankee neighbor is enjoying the beauty of brugs.

Whoah! shine in a 12 pack? You're gonna need some help with 12gallons of white lightning so I'll be right over soon as I get the weed whacker to turn loose of one of my bib overall straps!!

Cool! We'll really impress the neighbors! Bring your cousins too!