Category: Bugs and Animals

Bugs, insects, wild animals and pets.

Okay, I Hate These Raccoons

After we moved into our new house in Florida, we noticed every night that raccoons would come out of the woods next door and explore our yard.  They came right up to the back door, with the outside light on.

Raccoons at my back door

Oh, they were so cute. One time we looked out back to see three little raccoon faces peering out of the woods at us. .  It was adorable, and if I were any kind of photographer I would have had the camera handy and captured that image.

However, I know that raccoons are not the sweet, adorable creatures they appear to be.  And these days I abhor seeing their cute faces. They are thieves, that even wear masks as a warning!  They have no regard for the hard work farmers and gardeners put into growing their crops.

Raccoons have sharp claws and teeth. They can be vicious if need be, and the ones that visit my yard are mostly unafraid of humans and my cats. They mostly do their damage at night, but we’ve been sitting at the outside table, in full daylight,  and had one come out of the woods a mere 10 feet from us. Once he noticed we were there, he left. Rabies is common among them, but this one did not act in an unusual manner. I think he just wanted to see what we were up to.

I usually leave water outside for the cats during the day because of the heat. If I don’t empty the bucket, the raccoons always get into the water overnight and leave a muddy mess.  Occasionally they dump the bucket.

One evening after we had been out on our boat, I rinsed my expensive water shoes and left them to dry on the back patio. The next morning one of my shoes was missing! Luckily I found the shoe at the edge of the woods where apparently the raccoon decided it would be of no use to him.

sunflower stalk
My sunflower was much taller than this when the raccoons tore it down.

That same morning I discovered my tall sunflower stalk broken and dragged across the grass. It was the only sunflower seed that grew for me, and I really had hoped to see the flower bloom.

But worst of all is the stealing of my tomatoes. I just picked two ripe tomatoes and left about 4 more green ones on the vine. Today I saw that all the green tomatoes were gone! Last week they stole 2 nice red ones just before I had a chance to pick them.

They will drag pots and my fabric potting bags around.  It seems they have a grand old time during the darkness of night.  When the weather is nice, and my windows are open, I can hear them outside my window at night scampering around and occasionally “screaming” at each other.  Yes, they make noise, and it’s creepy.

raccoon and chain link fence
Raccoon image from Pixabay

I’m thinking it’s time for a fence. However, I am not sure that will keep them away. I’ve read that they can climb fences, and we’ve watched them climb down from way up in a neighboring tree. The fence may have to be made of slick material, like metal or plastic, that they cannot climb.  I’m saving my money, as we had planned to fence the yard anyway.  These creatures just give me more incentive to do so.

I can only hope that with a wall between them and my yard the little robbers, or bandits as they are rightfully called, will forget about my garden and go someplace else to scavenge.

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Parsley Worm and The Butterfly it Becomes

Screen Shot 2017-04-20 at 1.55.56 PMThis is a story about the parsley worms in my backyard. My garden is small, and a bit unique in that at the present time my vegetables are in pots and fabric bags.  I use fresh parsley often, and I have it growing in two locations.

One day I found this colorful worm crawling along a parsley stem and munching away.  I could see that he had chewed off many of the surrounding leaves.  This striped guy is appropriately called a “parsley worm”.

I couldn’t remember what type of butterfly it would become, (had to look that up) but I knew it was getting ready to form a chrysalis.

Turns out it’s a Swallowtail butterfly that emerged from the green chrysalis a few weeks later. The wrapped worm was attached to a stem of basil, which had gone to seed, but was in the same pot as the parsley the worm was eating.

But here’s what happened first.  I found the worm sitting in this position (below) and he was no longer eating.  In fact he was on the basil now, and not the parsley.  This is where he formed his chrysalis.  I checked it every day, and after a few weeks, there was something new to see.

Screen Shot 2017-04-20 at 1.58.07 PM
Worm beginning to form a chrysalis

Once the butterfly “hatched” he crawled to the top of the basil stem to try out his new wings.  Maybe this is the perfect set up for encouraging butterfly production.  I hope it happens again.

Screen Shot 2017-04-20 at 2.34.44 PM
Arrow pointing to the empty chrysalis

A few days ago I happened to go outside and saw this beautiful black butterfly at the top of the basil stem, and I knew… the baby was born!  The wind was blowing, but he held on for hours.  I kept checking on it, and then suddenly he was no longer there.

I felt like a proud parent.  I had helped a new baby butterfly enter the world. Course, I had done nothing but plant the parsley… haha!!!  But I felt good. And I’m glad I was able to see the beautiful butterfly before it flew away.  I took lots of photos, like a proud parent does, and one video.


It turns out that there are many types of Swallowtail butterflies, and the worms can be different colors too.  I honestly don’t know much about all of this, but I love it!  Imagine going from being earth bound and crawling among bunches of green parsley, to having big beautiful wings that take you up into the sky!  I will keep an eye out for eggs on the parsley leaves, and bright green worms among the branches.

 

Dilemma: Bugs, Birds, Bears, and Cats

grasshopper eating a sunflowerThis is my garden dilemma:  I have a grasshopper infestation.  I need a natural way to get rid of the bugs, as I am an organic gardener.

Attract birds that will eat them, is my first thought, but I have cats that go outside.  If I feed birds in summer it’s only the hummingbirds.  My cats would never be able to catch one of them.  In fact, neither of my cats are big hunters, but I imagine that birds get nervous when they look down and see cats in the yard, so they move on.

If the birds do end up eating the grasshoppers, they will be down near ground level.   The grasshoppers are feasting on the leaves of many of my garden plants.  If I put out feeders, I feel like I am inviting birds to their death, because of the cats.

Summer bird-feeding can also attract black bears in my area.   Continue reading “Dilemma: Bugs, Birds, Bears, and Cats”

Organic Control of Grasshoppers in the Garden

I’m trying to control a grasshopper infestation in the garden.

grasshopper control
Grasshopper Pests

I have millions of grasshoppers in my garden.  They are chewing up the leaves on my parsley, sunflowers, oregano and pretty much everything.  Now they are eating the flower buds off the coreopsis which seems to be a favorite of theirs.

As I walk along the edge of my small garden area, they jump away from me in a wave of moving leaves.  There are a lot of them.

I am an organic gardener, so I’ve been searching for natural ways to get them to leave, or die.  The organic product (Semaspore Bait) that kills them, is best used when they are young, so I don’t know if mine are young enough.  Even a small container is quite expensive, and since I don’t know if it will work at this time, I’m hesitant.  I’ll look for it at Agway.

A post at Home Guides has given me some advice for keeping the pests off my leaves naturally.  I know that garlic spray works well for insect control, but I don’t want my herbs to taste like garlic.  I might use it on plant leaves I won’t be eating.

I am going to try the molasses in jars approach.  By mixing molasses with water, the sweet drink attracts grasshoppers.  I have lots of little canning jars which may work for this experiment.  The idea is to attract the grasshoppers to the liquid and then they drown.  I have to bury jars in the dirt and fill them halfway with the mixture.  I hope it doesn’t attract beneficial bugs as well.  I’ll keep an eye on it.

Since I have molasses, and lots of canning jars, I plan to get started on that right away.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  I might combine that with the garlic spray approach and between the two, I may have some success.  There is no way I can kill them all within the short span of summer.  I’d love to have more birds, toads, frogs and even snakes around to chow down on the little critters.  I’ve seen some toads, and even a frog.  But my cats tend to keep everything away.  I only feed hummingbirds in summer because of the bears in my area.  The smell of sunflower seeds can bring bears into the yard, and I’ve had them destroy my feeders when left out in summer.

grasshoppers eating rhubarb
Eating Rhubarb Leaves

Get a Tick Key to Remove Those Nasty Critters

tick key tick removal
Remove Ticks Easily

I can’t remember how I heard about the tick key, but I am glad I have one. In fact I think they come in sets too, and it might be a good idea to have more than one since it’s easy to lose track of it.

The shape of the opening narrows to a point and I’ve used it to remove 2 ticks from my cats. Just slip the wide end over the tick and slide it down to the point. The tick comes right off – head and all. It’s so simple! Wish my photo was better, but you get the idea. I hate these things, like everyone else, and getting them off the animals was always such a chore. Then I’d worry if I’d removed the whole thing.

I find most bugs to be interesting and usually helpful. But there is no reason for ticks to exist, as far as I can see. Lime disease is so bad in New England, we have to find the best ways to avoid getting ticks in the first place. But if you are bitten, or you furry family member is, try the tick key – I think you will like it.
tick key and tick

The Return of the Turd Bug

Bug on tomato leaf
Turd Bug

Last summer I had a bug show up on my tomato plants that looked like a little bird turd. I have never before seen one like this. I’m always on the lookout for the worms that grow gigantic and can strip a tomato plant down to stems only, but when I first saw this little bug I dismissed it as bird poop.

Then I saw more of them so I looked closer. They are hard-shelled and I only found them on the tomatoes. So far this year I have found one on the potato plant. None of my tomatoes are in the ground yet. They do eat the leaves, but can be picked off easy enough. They fly if you mess with them, like little lady bugs.

On my New England blog I had mentioned this turd bug and a reader left a message telling me what it is. Look up the clavate tortoise beetle and you’ll see it is one and the same.  That page says, “this species appears to prefer plants of the family Solanaceae” which means…what?  Okay… I looked it up.  Wikipedia says it’s the nightshade family which does include potato, tomato and eggplant.

My tomato plants go into the ground this weekend and I’ll be keeping an eye out for the turd bug.

Must be the larva I got a photo of.
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