Rosiew, I enjoyed this blog -- thank you for thinking of us and taking the time to send it. She speaks truly, as our conditions are indeed "challenging" --
Sunny

sunnyside, so glad you liked. Y'all's challenges are different from mine, for sure. Battling encroaching bermuda grass is the bane of my existence. And crabgrass! Try to garden organically.

Rosie in Georgia

I enjoyed reading that. Jill Henderson has posted in this forum before although it's been awhile. Glad to hear she hasn't gotten tired of the Ozarks yet...or at least she hasn't moved away yet. I think everyone is tired of the Ozarks right now with the heat and drought.

Grasshoppers are thick in our hayfield. Nearly every year it looks like there's going to be a plague but I think a very small percentage make it to maturity without getting eaten - thank goodness.

Christie, nope, apparently she hasn't moved. Reading her blog know that they moved A LOT previously.

Tell me - what are the grasshoppers dining on? Have them here, but not thick. I'm in suburbia, 1/2 acre, lots of birds. Wish I wasn't so darned nearsighted. Would like to watch them munching on the hoppers. Do catch small ones and crickets and throw them into the golden orb spider webs. That is so neat to watch.

I've never thought about what they eat but our hayfield is so dry right now, it's a wonder I don't have more of them in my flower gardens instead. Maybe they like the dried seed heads in the hayfield. I drove back in our hayfield this week and my daughter laughed because when I pulled into the garage, I had a bunch of grasshoppers still riding on my hood.

Earlier this summer, I was seeing a couple turkeys in our field almost daily. Those things should be able to eat a lot of grasshoppers in a day - if that's what they eat.