Now there is a blog title I bet no one has ever posted before. Hey, anything to get attention.
Lately I've been a bit off track in my daily postings. Several reasons for my tardiness. An obsession with online Scrabble games (trying to get my win rate up to at least 50% - not successful - yet). Another reason is just the amount of time I spend in my backyard trying to maintain this garden oasis in Lower Slower (aka Sussex Country, Delaware).
Every year I encounter challenges in maintaining and improving by sylvan wonderland. This year my challenges are:
Japanese beetles
Bagworms
Rabbits
Oh my, oh my. Several times a day I go out and collect Japanese beetles off of my rose bushes. They're easy to collect, they just drop into my jar of soapy water and die.
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| A Japanese beetle gangbang |
I don't like to kill living things but I do make exceptions and Japanese beetles are definitely one of them. Why I even slip them into their soapy death when they're having sex, which is quite often.
I think the female Japanese beetle must be the slut of the insect world. I often find her, hind quarters up awaiting penetration by her male counterpart. Yep, I slip both of them into their soapy demise.
Another pest I found this year are bagworms. Ever see them? Disgusting! We have a whole like of pine trees bordering our property. Just last week I found that part of them is already infested with these useless insects. For the first time I went out and brought insecticide to kill the MF's. You can pick them off too like balls off of a Christmas tree.
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| They may look like pretty pine cones but they are death to a tree |
But believe me, these insidious, destructive insect will kill a tree in no time if left undetected. I've already lost a wonderful arborvitae tree next to my front door when I discovered them chewing away from their innocuous bags that I thought were miniature pinecones. I had to have the whole tree removed.
I sprayed the line of pine trees yesterday morning in the hot and humid heat but some still survived, witness Bill holding this one in his hand late yesterday.
But folks, the most annoying threat to my Garden of Eden here is, you got it:
RABBITS!
Every early evening, there they are, munching away on my expensive Peppers' Greenhouse plants. And bold! I almost tripped over these two last night while making my final rounds collecting Japanese beetles.
I'll be quite frank with you folks, I wouldn't mind shooting both of these Easter bunnies. Really, I wouldn't. But I won't. What I do instead is just try and plant plants that they don't like.
These rabbits may look all cute and everything but they are destructive. I've often said to Bill "Where is the fox when you really need one?"And coincidentally, yesterday as we were traveling up Route One to Milton to make a pit stop at Food Lion I saw a roadkill fox along the side of the road. So here we go, the rabbits have no natural enemies here in Lower Slower but the foxes have one which is pretty efficient in keeping their population down: automobiles.
Each day is a challenge folks, especially in my backyard where there are many living creatures, some uninvited and not welcome, sharing with me. But then there are others like the honey bees and the birds, all welcome. That's life!
Yeah, well we have tried to set out the Have-a-Heart trap with a carrot lure inside to catch the long eared critters to no avail. We try folks.