I got a phone call last night that some friends of mine would be passing through the area on their way to Florida. We made a plan to meet and have lunch today.
 Paul and Peggy |  |  |
I volunteered a couple of years at Balcones Canyonlands NWR with Paul and Peggy. They’re from Vermont, and we had a good time working together. We’ve kept in touch, and I was happy to see them again today.
Paul is an internal medicine doctor and surgeon (I hope I got that title right), and had a few suggestions for me concerning my upcoming surgery. Most importantly, he wrote down several important questions that I should ask my surgeon before having the procedure. I will take those questions with me the next time I meet with Dr. Brodersen.
Yesterday afternoon while I was digging the bird feeders out of my basement storage bins, a huge insect flew out of the storage area at me. Big bugs give me the creeps, and this one took my breath away as I dodged it. It looked like a gigantic stink bug to me.
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I went to dump the tanks this evening about 5:00, and there it was again clinging to the inside of the water and dump hook-up door! It made me think about that assassin type insect out at the Homestead that I took a picture of the other day. That bug has a painful bite, so this one made me nervous. I decided to knock it off with my cane, and then I squished it with a board. Wow! It did put off quite an odor that just hung in the air. The thing was almost three inches long.
I’m not sure crunching it was such a good idea. When I came around to the other side of the rig, I found another one sitting on top of the red Ortho Home Guard Insect spray bottle that can be seen in the pics of the rig entrance steps above.
Then, when Emma and I came inside for the evening, I could hear the loud droning of some insect dive bombing me inside the rig. It turned out to be another of these big insects. I wonder if the odor emitted by the one I squashed attracted others to the area? I took a deep breath, put on rubber gloves, grabbed a dish rag, and scooped up the bug inside the rig and threw it out the window! I’m thinking this is definitely not a ‘pink’ job! Where’s a ‘blue’ man when you need one??? 
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
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I'm a wimp when it comes to bugs that fly at me! Back in your home and stay till bugs abandon ship!!!
ReplyDeleteI have a healthy respect for bugs that are mean enough to sit on the Ortho bottle. They're tuff!!!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a flash drive? You could load those photos onto one (USB) and next time you're at Wal-mart print out the pictures. Or maybe one of your fellow volunteers has a printer you could use instead of going to town. Sounds like a good idea that you'll take pictures of what your challenges will be. As much as I love insects, I don't like them dive-bombing me. Hope this infestation is short lived!
ReplyDeleteI am shivering just reading about that bug. I hate those stink bugs. When we were in Livingston, they were all over. Thank goodness they aren't here in Houston.
ReplyDeleteI can print them and snail mail you a copy. Or you can have the P.T. go to your blog. Or you can email the P.T. a copy. Either way it sounds like great advice from your friends.
ReplyDeleteI have such a phobia about bugs my skin is just crawling thinking about your bugs. After Jim's back surgery, they had special exercises that they used with him so he could maneuver the steps into our fifth wheel when he got to come home. I never thought about taking a picture to show them. What a great idea.
ReplyDeleteAnnie's "blue" enough for most jobs around here, and she would have captured your bugs and set them free. "Odorless" is not guaranteed, though.
ReplyDeleteGreat suggestions for getting it printed. A thumb drive/usb stick/flash drive is a great thing to have. You can put the pics on it and take them to kinkos. They will print them for you for nothing. Also very possible you can email them to someone in PT.
ReplyDeleteI love nearly all critters, snakes, frogs, pretty much everyone except cockroaches and things that fly at my face or hair. I don't think you are a whimp at all. I'd be googling where to get body armour. Maybe hose down the area where you squashed the devil. YUCK!
Keep us posted.
Nasty bugs, and stink bugs are the worse kind. You can also download pictures to walmart photo and have them mailed to you within 5-7 days. Just another option.
ReplyDeleteI hope they are not on the attack, because you killed one of them. For your sake, I hope they disappear!
ReplyDeleteMany places now have self printers and you can just stick the memory card from your camera in the appropriate slot and away you go. Or, if there is a Costco nearby, it's easy to upload the pictures from the computer and and pick them up when they're ready. If nothing else, I bet the doctors office can print them right from your camera memory card. Just take the camera to your next appt. Good luck...with the photos and with the yukky bugs!!
ReplyDeleteEveryone beat me to it with the printing solution. I used to scream like a banshee (sp?) for Rich whenever I came across any kind of bug. Left to my own devices, I still scream like a banshee but have learned that I can kill them. Yuk!
ReplyDeleteGood advice from your doctor. "A picture is worth a thousand words!) Pats to Emma.
Maybe those bugs were after you due to the demise of their 'friend' or 'relative' ??? :)
ReplyDeleteI printed off the pictures for you and will bring them with me..
ReplyDeleteKurt
I'm afraid at our house catching that bug would have been my job! Craig is not good with critters. I might get him to kill a spider from time to time, but usually he just calls me and tells me where one of my "friends" is.
ReplyDeleteAt my daughters home I have been called on to catch lizards, large moths, and even a bird that got in.
I don't mind.
Go to walgreens.com and download the photo to their site. They used to charge $.19 for 4 x6 prints. Most Walgreens have one hour photo.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like you have a Ninja Bug....yuck!
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of bugs, especially the flying kind that can quickly disappear into cracks and nooks before you can ID them; or the kind that fly around me. It's been cold enough around here that the stink bugs we've found in the basement have been sluggish ... wondering how many of them are going to crawl out of the woodwork now that we're living in the motorhome and the furnace is warming us (and them) s nicely.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of anything that crawls and certainly not something that stinks when you smash it!
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate a neat looking bug OUTSIDE the rig...inside? not so much..Great idea to show those pics to your Doc..lots of steps to climb, even at the get-go...I hope you can get that surgery scheduled so other plans can be made for your rehabilitation...
ReplyDeleteNot happy with your steps Judy! I wouldn't want that last loose step to move away as you reached your foot out to it. But not sure what you can do about it. Just be careful!
ReplyDeleteLike you I hate bugs. I think bugs today are mutating. Remember the Japanese Beetle? Well their "huge" cousins arrived the following year, after we had disposed of thousands of those gross bugs in the bags.
ReplyDeleteWe too felt like we were on the attack.
They say the camera adds ten pounds, that was a HUGE bug! Yikes. I think (from what I have read) that stink bugs do produce the odor to attract other stink bugs. I say disinfect that dead bug area and hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteHow do they get in there? That's what I would wonder.
Yuk.
Every time we come up to this area (NJ and MD) we get a rig full of stink bugs and take them with us to parts south. Now those ones you had must have gotten into some nuclear waste and mutated!
ReplyDeleteI've wondered about those steps from the very beginning... I guess it comes from the fact of Hubs being an amputee and always having "how's this going to work" in the back of my mind!
ReplyDeleteI detest most bugs and would never have given that one a second chance! The others were probably just coming for the funeral tho, so once you got it outside for them things should settle down I hope! ;o)
Those are some nasty looking bugs!
ReplyDeleteWith havin so much written content do you ever run into any problems of plagorism
ReplyDeleteor copyright violation? My blog has a lot of exclusive content I've either created myself or outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my permission. Do you know any techniques to help prevent content from being ripped off? I'd genuinely appreciate it.
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