@Ignorant@sammydog01@tinamarie1974
Yep, if you look at the legs you can see why they are called leaf-footed bugs.
Also, re google image thinking it’s a spider… WTF!! Did they think you had ripped a couple of legs off before posting the pic?? A whip is one thing… ripping off appendages is totally unacceptable!
@Ignorant@Kyeh nothing on the fig right now. It doesn’t really start leafing out for another month or so. Just tiny baby leaves @ the moment. Good thought thought, thank you
I think he may have been in one of my prim rose beds, they are starting to bloom and he was full of pollen
@Ignorant@Kyeh hopefully this year. My parents gave me the start when I moved into my current house, so it is about 5 years. They have had theirs much longer - moved from a few different houses, but since the late 80’s at the current house. Theirs bears loads of figs, but the local wildlife usually gets most of it.
And thanks, I have three beds of it. I will need to weed it out this summer it grows like crazy!!
@Ignorant@tinamarie1974 Oh, that’ll be exciting when it gets its first fruit!
I wish I could get some of the primroses you have to thin out. The best plants in my yard,
i.e. most hardy and reliable, are the ones I’ve gotten from friends/coworkers.
@Ignorant@tinamarie1974 Oh, thanks ; I didn’t really expect you to send me some, I was just wishing I could take advantage of your weeding project! The Nextdoor site has a gardening group and last fall I got some lilies-of-the-valley, which made me very happy! I ought to check that site every day because a lot of people are thinning their plants right now. I keep just missing out on stuff…
nothing on the fig right now. It doesn’t really start leafing out for another month or so.
Holy Crap! My fig tree has been leafed out for a month, leaves the size of a full sheet of paper, baby figs the size of gumballs. It’s been there since we bought the house in 1988. Currently it’s about 15 feet tall, and 20 feet in diameter. Generally the figs are ready in late June/early July and I have enough for me, the neighbors, the birds, wasps and june bugs, and to put up a ton of whole fig preserves and bourbon fig jam (both to eat and to give out at Christmas or birthdays etc). I have also dried some in the dehydrator as well as eating the crap out of them fresh. They all come in over just 2 or 3 weeks locally and don’t really keep well once ripe (tend to get soggy and then the juices ferment, even in the fridge) so you have to get on it quickly. Unfortunately last year I was hobbled up with recovery from Achilles tendon surgery, so had to rely on help from the wife to pick them and we didn’t get as many processed as we normally do. Still had enough to go around for Christmas though.
@Ignorant@Kyeh@tinamarie1974
Told ya! I have a ‘smaller’ one behind and to the left of the pool house from that angle. It’s only about 8-10ft tall and 10-12 ft in diameter.
@chienfou@Ignorant@tinamarie1974
Fantastic! And now I see why they used fig leaves on Greek statues - they’re plenty big enough to cover “things” up!
Your pool and poolhouse are awfully nice too.
Any bug that is in my house assuming I can catch it, I put a red plastic cup over it and slide a piece of paper under the cup and take it outside to let it go. It isn’t bothering me so why should I bother (kill) it. It is another living thing.
@Felton10@tinamarie1974 I do the cup thing with spiders too, if I can, but I might not be merciful to a black widow in my house!
I kill ticks though - ugh.
@Felton10@PooltoyWolf@tinamarie1974
Yikes, I can see that would be useful!
Once I was holding a drawer from a large metal flat file and walking down some steps, and a wasp stung me first on the top of one hand, and then on the other. And I couldn’t do anything until I got down the steps because the drawer was very heavy, so I just had to ignore it! 🥵
@Felton10@PooltoyWolf@tinamarie1974
I was at least kind of happy about being able to tough it out and not totally lose my cool; but I hope it never happens again.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@tinamarie1974
Did they get them locally? Most hatcheries wouldn’t ship less than a half dozen or so years ago, when I used to buy them by mail… Of course, the last time I got some I split some with a friend so we had over a dozen ordered…
@chienfou@Kidsandliz@Kyeh Picked them out at the local farm and home store, however there is a hatchery in MO that does something they call “city orders”. Dad was able to get four Salmon Faverolles shipped last year. I think he could have gotten less, but they suggested four incase one or two died. Dad lost one
Tarantulas:
Grown ups take the poison thing out
The children pick off all the hairs
Cut into little pieces
Stir fry
Add to the water rice (eg rice that still has some water left not absorbed even though the rice is done - this is the poor person way to eat rice as it stretches it over more people).
I was thinking OMG she wants spider for dinner. How am I going to explain to Petsmart that I want their biggest, juiciest tarantula (in her country they are bigger than your fist - the body can be 8" in diameter) and no tarantula food. So I asked her if she wanted spider for dinner. She said, “Oh no mom. Spider no good. In this country we have chicken”. Whew!
Here is how to cook most other spiders. You pull off all the legs, stab it with a stick and cook it over a fire.
Here is her comment on Angeline Jolie and her son Mattock when they were in Cambodia eating spider at a high end eatery. My kid said, “Cambodian people smart mom. They convince everyone else that what only the poor people eat is good food and then make lots of money”.
@Felton10@Kidsandliz@tinamarie1974
Okay, I Googled this. Evidently people think the cicadas taste like nuts, asparagus, even shrimp. Tarantulas sound less good - some people said “crab-like” but others said bland, or like a cross between chicken and cod.
I’m a fairly adventurous eater, but I’m happy to settle for someone else’s description when it comes to bugs!
OK, so … here is another pic for you, this one taken YESTERDAY…
Evidently, if you want to attract a bunch of leaf-footed bugs to one spot, plant some yucca. The flower stalks are about 4 feet tall, and they are COVERED with those. It’s like a magnet for the little bastards! Headed out to spray them today. Of course, on the plus side, they are not in my (organic) veggie garden this way.
Oh, and it looks like I can look forward to a bunch of the nymphs as well…
/image Acanthocephala (bug)
Maybe
@Ignorant that is definitely it!!! Thank you!!
Edit: looks like they are pretty harmless, that was my concern. They look pretty scary
@Ignorant Wow you know your bugs.
@Ignorant @sammydog01 @tinamarie1974
Yep, if you look at the legs you can see why they are called leaf-footed bugs.
Also, re google image thinking it’s a spider… WTF!! Did they think you had ripped a couple of legs off before posting the pic?? A whip is one thing… ripping off appendages is totally unacceptable!
@chienfou @Ignorant @sammydog01 I was a little confused. Kept trying to redo the search thinking Google would improve, but no!
And whips are ok because consent, but to rip a poor little bugs legs off…that is cruel
@tinamarie1974
@chienfou dirty boy!
@sammydog01 Google helped me just a little bit.
@tinamarie1974
@Ignorant @tinamarie1974 You might want to make sure they’re not on your fig tree - evidently they feed on fruit trees and other desirable plants.
@Ignorant @Kyeh nothing on the fig right now. It doesn’t really start leafing out for another month or so. Just tiny baby leaves @ the moment. Good thought thought, thank you
I think he may have been in one of my prim rose beds, they are starting to bloom and he was full of pollen
@Ignorant @tinamarie1974
Oh, good.
Does that tree bear fruit?
The primroses are beautiful!
@Ignorant @Kyeh hopefully this year. My parents gave me the start when I moved into my current house, so it is about 5 years. They have had theirs much longer - moved from a few different houses, but since the late 80’s at the current house. Theirs bears loads of figs, but the local wildlife usually gets most of it.
And thanks, I have three beds of it. I will need to weed it out this summer it grows like crazy!!
@Ignorant @tinamarie1974 Oh, that’ll be exciting when it gets its first fruit!
I wish I could get some of the primroses you have to thin out. The best plants in my yard,
i.e. most hardy and reliable, are the ones I’ve gotten from friends/coworkers.
@Ignorant @Kyeh I would be happy to send you some but I don’t think it would survive shipping??
It dies not take much. I think I started with 5 or 6 little plants three years ago and it is trying to completely take over
@chienfou it’s my fault, I pick the wrong recaptcha images just to stick it to big data.
Greetings, new robot friend. In time you will come to accept your robotic ways.
@Ignorant @tinamarie1974 Oh, thanks
; I didn’t really expect you to send me some, I was just wishing I could take advantage of your weeding project! The Nextdoor site has a gardening group and last fall I got some lilies-of-the-valley, which made me very happy! I ought to check that site every day because a lot of people are thinning their plants right now. I keep just missing out on stuff…
@Ignorant @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Holy Crap! My fig tree has been leafed out for a month, leaves the size of a full sheet of paper, baby figs the size of gumballs. It’s been there since we bought the house in 1988. Currently it’s about 15 feet tall, and 20 feet in diameter. Generally the figs are ready in late June/early July and I have enough for me, the neighbors, the birds, wasps and june bugs, and to put up a ton of whole fig preserves and bourbon fig jam (both to eat and to give out at Christmas or birthdays etc). I have also dried some in the dehydrator as well as eating the crap out of them fresh. They all come in over just 2 or 3 weeks locally and don’t really keep well once ripe (tend to get soggy and then the juices ferment, even in the fridge) so you have to get on it quickly. Unfortunately last year I was hobbled up with recovery from Achilles tendon surgery, so had to rely on help from the wife to pick them and we didn’t get as many processed as we normally do. Still had enough to go around for Christmas though.
@chienfou @Ignorant @tinamarie1974
Lucky!!!
@Ignorant @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
If I remember I’ll post a pic of it tomorrow.
@Ignorant @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Chairs and 16x16 poolhouse for scale (yep… it’s that BIG green lump!)
regular loose leaf note paper
finger for scale
@chienfou @Ignorant @Kyeh that is HUGE. Mine is still a baby. I will take a pic tomorrow
@Ignorant @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Told ya! I have a ‘smaller’ one behind and to the left of the pool house from that angle. It’s only about 8-10ft tall and 10-12 ft in diameter.
@chienfou @Ignorant @tinamarie1974
Fantastic! And now I see why they used fig leaves on Greek statues - they’re plenty big enough to cover “things” up!
Your pool and poolhouse are awfully nice too.
@Ignorant @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Thanks. Shelter in place hasn’t been too tough…
There are a few more pics here
@chienfou @Ignorant @tinamarie1974 Really impressive! It sounds like a lot of work though. Your grandkids are very lucky!
Any bug that is in my house assuming I can catch it, I put a red plastic cup over it and slide a piece of paper under the cup and take it outside to let it go. It isn’t bothering me so why should I bother (kill) it. It is another living thing.
@Felton10 I do the same, except for clothes moths and flies and mosquitoes. For those, I show no mercy.
@Felton10 @Kyeh and
OMG!!
@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 I do the cup thing with spiders too, if I can, but I might not be merciful to a black widow in my house!
I kill ticks though - ugh.
@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 I bought some of the ‘Critter Catcher’ thingies Meh was selling a week or so ago. They work great!
@Felton10 @Kyeh @PooltoyWolf I knew I should have bought them!!!
@Felton10 @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974 Really?! They looked weird to me - I’m glad they’re a success!
@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 They work exactly as advertised! We tried it on a wasp Mom accidentally sprayed with the hose while washing her car.
@Felton10 @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974
Yikes, I can see that would be useful!
Once I was holding a drawer from a large metal flat file and walking down some steps, and a wasp stung me first on the top of one hand, and then on the other. And I couldn’t do anything until I got down the steps because the drawer was very heavy, so I just had to ignore it! 🥵
@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 That sucks!!
@Felton10 @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974
I was at least kind of happy about being able to tough it out and not totally lose my cool; but I hope it never happens again.
@Felton10 @Kyeh @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974 Was it a paper wasp?
@Felton10 @mehcuda67 @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974
I don’t know. I was picking up the flat file from someone who was giving it away and I’d never been to the house before.
@Felton10 @Kyeh @mehcuda67 @tinamarie1974 I hope the nest wasn’t inside the flat file LOL!
@Felton10 @mehcuda67 @PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974
Hah - no. I do get paper wasps in the storage shed in my yard, but they haven’t stung me.
This is how I see them lots of times, as clumps of nymphs in the garden…
@chienfou Yick.
@chienfou
@tinamarie1974 @Kyeh
yeah, but at least the chickens will eat them if I throw the lot of them in the coop!
@chienfou @Kyeh those birds will eat pretty much anything!
Btw new baby chicks @ my parents house 🥰
@chienfou @tinamarie1974 Ooo, I hope you post pictures!
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
I’m gonna assume you want pics of the chicks… Not my hens scarfing down leaf footed bug nymphs!
@chienfou @tinamarie1974
Haha - baby chicks preferred, but hens scarfing bugs would be fun to see too!
@chienfou @Kyeh I will take a few pics next time I am at moms. We picked them out a few weeks ago, they are so darn cute!!
@chienfou @Kyeh the girls
🥰
@chienfou @tinamarie1974
Awww! Thanks - baby animals are always so nice to see!
@chienfou @Kyeh you are welcome. I’ll try to remember to post pics as they grow!!! I love baby animals too, love picking these girls up to pet!!
@chienfou @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 gosh they are so little! Just babies. Good thing there are 4 of them so they can hang together and feel safer.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh yup and when they are old enough there are four grown hens in the coop for them to socialize with as well
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh and I forgot to tell you. But they are ISA Browns
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Did they get them locally? Most hatcheries wouldn’t ship less than a half dozen or so years ago, when I used to buy them by mail… Of course, the last time I got some I split some with a friend so we had over a dozen ordered…
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh Picked them out at the local farm and home store, however there is a hatchery in MO that does something they call “city orders”. Dad was able to get four Salmon Faverolles shipped last year. I think he could have gotten less, but they suggested four incase one or two died. Dad lost one
I guess that this thread is a good start, before the cicadas invasion!
@lonocat omg, I don’t want to think about those little bastards
Today I learned that’s not a stinkbug. I hate stinkbugs.
just a bug
I can say with certainty that is a cat toy bug.
@Kidsandliz Aren’t they all?
Speaking of bugs-our daughter boiled, then baked and then ate some Cicadas tonight. Will post pics if anyone is interested.
@Felton10
Yes, please do! Did she like them?
Well she ate them. Pics of them being cooked and after they were cooked.
@Felton10
@tinamarie1974 I feel the same way. My wife tried to show me the video she made while eating them and I said NO!!!
@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 Well, they do look pretty unappealing - what did she say about the taste?
@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 Here is my daughter’s recipe for spiders
Tarantulas:
Grown ups take the poison thing out
The children pick off all the hairs
Cut into little pieces
Stir fry
Add to the water rice (eg rice that still has some water left not absorbed even though the rice is done - this is the poor person way to eat rice as it stretches it over more people).
I was thinking OMG she wants spider for dinner. How am I going to explain to Petsmart that I want their biggest, juiciest tarantula (in her country they are bigger than your fist - the body can be 8" in diameter) and no tarantula food. So I asked her if she wanted spider for dinner. She said, “Oh no mom. Spider no good. In this country we have chicken”. Whew!
Here is how to cook most other spiders. You pull off all the legs, stab it with a stick and cook it over a fire.
Here is her comment on Angeline Jolie and her son Mattock when they were in Cambodia eating spider at a high end eatery. My kid said, “Cambodian people smart mom. They convince everyone else that what only the poor people eat is good food and then make lots of money”.
@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974
So what do tarantulas taste like? Not chicken, I guess…
@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 No frigging way I am going to find out. Nope Nope Nope.
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Didn’t talk to her personally about it. Not a conversion I want to have.
@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974
Well, I don’t want to eat them myself, but I’m curious!
@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
yeah, and Where the hell did she get them? I don’t think you can pick them up by the pound in Publix or Albertsons.
@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974
Okay, I Googled this. Evidently people think the cicadas taste like nuts, asparagus, even shrimp. Tarantulas sound less good - some people said “crab-like” but others said bland, or like a cross between chicken and cod.
I’m a fairly adventurous eater, but I’m happy to settle for someone else’s description when it comes to bugs!
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Off the trees in the wooded area in back of her condo.
@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 After she blanched them she sauteed them and cooked them in the oven with olive oil and old bay.
@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Yikes. I hope she used some hearing protectors, or meh-sourced noise cancelling headphones at least.
@chienfou @Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974
Well, I give her major points for adventurousness, that’s for sure!
@chienfou @Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 OK so the NY Times has weighed in on eating those nasty things.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/dining/cicadas-bun-lai.html
@chienfou @Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 I’d be willing to take a taste of one of those gourmet creations, maybe. Not a whole meal, though.
@chienfou @Felton10 @Kidsandliz @Kyeh no way, nope can’t make me try em.
@chienfou @Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Me neither. I am not starving enough.
OK, so … here is another pic for you, this one taken YESTERDAY…
Evidently, if you want to attract a bunch of leaf-footed bugs to one spot, plant some yucca. The flower stalks are about 4 feet tall, and they are COVERED with those. It’s like a magnet for the little bastards! Headed out to spray them today. Of course, on the plus side, they are not in my (organic) veggie garden this way.
Oh, and it looks like I can look forward to a bunch of the nymphs as well…
@chienfou I love yucca plants. They are so pretty, and the roots are tasty too!!