Another Grasshopper Plague

[wroughtn_harv]

My wife's made up a tobacco tea for all the plants up around the house. She says she heard grasshoppers ain't much into the taste of tobacco.

A four acre pasture next door to the shop is plumb full of little hoppin' devils. Not so many in the weeds and ivey around the shop though. And the feeder for the chickens isn't hardly touched anymore.

I've noticed the chickens foraging for the grasshoppers do it in pairs as a team. One will lead off to one side of the other chicken. When it stirs a grasshopper and the bug goes off to one side the trailing chicken nails it. If the trailing chicken surprises one and it takes off away and to the front the leading chicken gets it.

And they do like them grasshoppers. The bigger the better.

We're like fifty percent ahead on total rain fall for the year down here in the Dallas area. Last fall Lavon had places next to seventy eight where you could walk across. Now you'd either have to be Christ like or have gills to walk it.

 

[wichiwichi]

What insecticide can be used on the eggs?

 

[Dozernut]

Bird

Would you like some Cicadas to go with your grasshoppers?/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif We are going through the 13th year cycle and they are everywhere. The woods has a steady trill from the mating call of this large insect. They sure are hard on the young trees, they bore into the tree to lay their eggs. We could send you some if you would like as we have plenty. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[wasabi]

<font color=blue>Bird wrote: I guess the best thing is that we've had unusually cool weather so far</font color=blue>

What weird weather this year has held, eh? I read alarming statistics yesterday about the Southwest drought. Here in South Carolina, we had a hot spell early this spring that tricked the azaleas into blooming early....then it turned unseasonably cool.

Yesterday it was 102 /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif I guess summer is announcing its arrival here in the south!

Fierce skeeters, but no hoppers to speak of here.

 

[Bird]

We always have plenty of Cicadas, thank you!/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif However, we haven't had a real plague of them for several years. But the grasshoppers have really arrived in force now. I thought about spraying the garden, but then thought better of that idea. If I did that, I might have to harvest even more produce and we've already got too much./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif The 90 degree weather has finally arrived, and I picked and my wife froze 8.5 quarts of blackberries this morning (we had already frozen 10 quarts and let a neighbor pick 2 gallons). Then I picked 6 gallons of green beans (my wife's processing them to take to a daughter Wednesday since she's already canned 4 cases for us and we've given away 10 gallons of them). Then I dug 5 gallons of potatoes and 2 gallons of carrots. Saturday, we gave away 10 gallons of cucumbers, 5 gallons each of yellow squash and potatoes, a couple of gallons each of turnips and beets, and two dozen onions. And I'll have to pick okra, squash, cucumbers, bell peppers, black-eyed peas, and tomatoes tomorrow again./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif Of course, there's still lots of potatoes, beets, turnips, and carrots in the ground, and I'm gettin' tired. I'll keep pickin' and my wife'll keep freezing and cannin' stuff, but I ain't gonna water or spray the garden anymore this year./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[fishman]

I've got the answer right here!/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

My property has a small (1.5 acre) lake that dries up about this time every year.

<font color=red> Yes, I see the irony in a fisheries biologist owning a lake that dries up every year, so PLEASE don't bring it up</font color=red> /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Anyway, about a kabillion little toads hatched out and now they are everywhere. While they were tadpoles, they kept the mosquitoes down to nothing. Now, I have a hard time finding any grasshoppers. Gotta watch where I step though, cause the little toads are everywhere!!!