Invasion

It's not enough that we have deer eating our trees and turkeys and rabbits making full use of our yard, we have now been taken over by the ladybugs. I expect them to be answering the door any time now. They are everywhere! They like to congregate around the windows in the bathroom and climb all over the bathtub, the sink, mirrors and the windows. Darryl has gotten mad at me quite a few times for not closing the lids on the cereal box because he kept finding ladybugs in his cereal. He really blew it when he ate one. I was only leaving them open a few minutes because the kids always want more.

Darryl wants us to respect the ladybugs and not kill them (even after he ate one) because they supposedly eat bugs that harm the Christmas trees. I'm not sure how they can do their job living in our house. They must have a short life because we see an awful lot of dead ones. The kids have begun to respect them a little more and at least don't play with them so much (except Kevin). Maybe they have finally gotten bored with them. We opened the windows in the bathroom to let some of them out in hopes that they might find the trees they are suppose to help. Unfortunately the wasps flew in. At one time I counted 10 wasps in the bathroom.

Darryl wants us to respect the wasps also (they may have a purpose but if so I don't know what it is) so I stopped killing them. He says this kind is not the violent kind. My theory was that if we killed them, that would be less wasps to fly in the window. His theory was that the queen wasp noticing that fewer wasps were returning would just produce more. The kids use to be deathly afraid of wasps and hollered and screamed whenever they saw one. With our nonchalant attitude towards them, they have begun to watch them and are no longer as afraid. We now use a broom to get them to go back out the window. We discovered that this worked by accident. They cling to the broom and it is easier to get them back out. Scott even said the other day that Margaret told him that if you didn't bother them they wouldn't bother you. Seeing that they were no longer afraid of wasps, I did caution them not to pick one up. Deann even said that she liked watching them. That was until one flew in her bath while she was in it. She freaked out! She screamed so loud that I thought she had been stung. I had a heck of a time getting her to get back in the tub to wash her hair even after I had gotten rid of it.

I've wondered if it would be profitable to gather up all these ladybugs and sell them.