by Elaine Glimme » Wed Oct 10, 2018 9:32 am
So a couple of bad days. Challenge #1 A couple of days ago. I'm out in the back yard when I see this really spectacular insect. It's a wasp, very black, long hairy antennae, and a shiny orange abdomen (insect butt). I tell my husband that he will want to see it. He does. It's wrapped around a katydid that's just a little bigger than the wasp. "That's a tarantula hawk, says Tom (husband) Their sting paralyzes spiders but doesn't kill them. Then the tarantula hawk lays it's eggs in the spider, and the larvae feed off of the spider. Nature is really nasty! I don't mind having one wasp in the back yard, but a whole nest full of these things! No thanks! The wasp is dragging the katydid towards artificial grass. Tom tells me that the katydid will shrivel up in the grass, and the young won't survive. And the spider wasp will fly away. She's already gone, he says. Sometimes husbands tell their wives what they think the wives want to hear.
I get on the Internet and start researching spider wasps. It's actually not a tarantula wasp but something similar. Tarantula hawks are all black; they don't have an orange abdomen; and what was she doing with a katydid? She should have been attacking a spider. (her treatment of the katydid was brutal.)
More internet research: If you get stung by a tarantula hawk, you should lie down and scream, because the sting is so painful that you won't be able to walk straight or think straight. Oh . . . Also, the adult digs a burrow in the ground where she deposits the spider with her eggs inside. She only eats nectar, but she feeds insect to her young larvae. (That explains the katydid.)
Apparently, there's also something called a cicada wasp which doesn't look like the one I found. But it would be more likely to attack a katydid.
I am an environmentalist, and I don't like to use bug spray, but for a nest of spider wasps, I'm willing to make an exception. The most logical place for her nest is below the lavender and salvia bushes. But honeybees and hummingbirds really like those bushes. Is there a way? I will call Orkin . . . which brings me to challenge # 2
Challenge # 2 My phone won't accept a charge. i took it to the cell phone hospital and the tech cleaned out the port, but the phone still won't charge. He's taking it apart for a deeper cleaning. if that doesn't fix it, I have to buy a new battery, a new port, or a new phone. Fixing the old one will take about a week.
Elaine Glimme - author - "Temporary Address" and "The Molly Chronicles"
