bah... yeah grasshoppers will eat hosta too... I think my bird population keeps the grasshoppers at bay here..
John

Gonna quit whining

==>>> see what i mean.. ????

ken A ----you live in Michigan, not the Ozarks. Biting/bloodsucking bugs are abundant in the north like which bug is almost the state bird in Minnesota. But further south it seems like foragers never stop coming. It's the longer growing season. At night the cicadas can make it impossible to hear your tv with windows open. Guess what all of those do when they are grubs? They make great bait for catching perch though (hillbilly perch; but I would bet yellow perch would eat them also.)

I am not whining but every year for about a 4 week period when I drove at dawn for more than 5 miles I would hit a bug I called "grease bug" - big dudes that went smack when they hit my windshield, leaving a dark brown, greasy smear that washer solvent just made worse. Never saw the bug in daylight, so I don't have the slightest idea what they were. Except they were active the same time as a large beetle that had a shiny green or blue carapice (Scarab? I think they were called s--t kickers because they rolled dung into holes in the ground and laid their eggs in it) that got into everything. Don't stomp on them. You would have to burn your shoes.

How I hated them! Sandy is expressing frustration which is different than whining - I think! The grasshoppers she may be referring to could be the big grey-brown things that have black and yellow wings. When they fly you can hear a clacking sound. They are 3-4 inches long. About every 3-4 years they are devestating. Hundreds can raid a garden overnight. Catch one and it will leave a dark brown stinking spittle all over your fingers. Ugh!

Les

What you describe is something that MOST birds do not eat. They are as long as your finger too. So far, none appeared here, but I feel the dread from past experiences.

Wow, one bug we don't have! wonders never cease....

bkay

Not whining, just griping. Different, Ken. I was refering to not whining about my weather, the heat, poor little me in general, my complaints are small and insignificant when people are losing their homes to fire, storms, floods, etc. All I have to complain about are a few hungry critters and another hot summer. It's nothing. We are blessed. The tornado missed us last year, it was a hot summer but we survived it and we will this one too. We have our house, our car, our lives and our hostas, plagued as they may be, nothing to have a pity party about. Just blowing off steam.

Tomorrow when it's daylight I'll take a picture of what the grasshoppers did to my balloon flower. The ones I saw in the hostas last night were just baby ones, hopefully the gang of robins that hangs out in the woods will get them before they grow up, or we'll get some good rain that will put an end to them.

Sandy

Not whining, just griping. Different, Ken. I was refering to not whining about my weather, the heat, poor little me in general, my complaints are small and insignificant when people are losing their homes to fire, storms, floods, etc. All I have to complain about are a few hungry critters and another hot summer. It's nothing. We are blessed. The tornado missed us last year, it was a hot summer but we survived it and we will this one too. We have our house, our car, our lives and our hostas, plagued as they may be, nothing to have a pity party about. Just blowing off steam.

Tomorrow when it's daylight I'll take a picture of what the grasshoppers did to my balloon flower. The ones I saw in the hostas last night were just baby ones, hopefully the gang of robins that hangs out in the woods will get them before they grow up, or we'll get some good rain that will put an end to them.

Sandy

I hate it when it does that. I'm blaming it on this tablet computer I'm using. Touchy. Sorry.

Sandy

I'm blamiing the implied tone of my above reply on the heat, Sandy. But I can do that. I am not the one who said I would stop whining (LOL).

Oh how I hated those "grease bugs". As big as they are they still got into EVERYTHING. They moved no faster than a box turtle and there were times I would have my shop at work swept 4-5 times a day so someone could walk without stepping on one. I mean as many as 60 each time. They wouldn't hesitate to walk right up ones leg under blue-jeans.

yuck!

Les

I remember those big grasshoppers from whem I was a kid growing up in Michigan on the farm, Les. Big nasty things that would jump up and get in my hair and cling to my clothes when I walked in the hayfields. I hated them . Grasshopper tobacco spit was awful, stained my clothes.

The ones we have here are much smaller but still gave a voracious appetite. They don't get much more than an inch or so long and are mostly green or tan. This is what they did to my balloon flower; they seem to be gone from there now and the plant is recovering as balloon flowers do after a shearing. Maybe the birds got them. I haven't seen much damage (from them) yet on the hostas, time will tell.

But not whining! Lol!

Sandy