Do geese eat grasshoppers?

   There are grasshoppers in my yard bigger than my cat!  They try to jump on my leg for a free ride around the yard, but I do not let that happen. I do not like their sticky legs.  I do not like their little tight lips, nor their bugged out eyes.  They are tricky little varmints.  They can land on a light bulb and not fall off before  propelling themselves off in any direction, except to the direction I thought they were going to jump.

They are not afraid of humans.  Insect spray does not harm them.  They eat everything in sight except weeds.   They do not eat weeds. They travel in packs!  They go from a tiny thing the size of a gnat into a 3 inch long giant grasshopper in seven minutes! 

If it were not for the fact that they are the most destructive things on planet Earth, they would be fascinating creatures.  They can fly.  They can take off from a dead standstill and become airborne in a blur.  They can jump further than a kangaroo.  I think they fly.  They are both aerodynamic and waterproof.  I think they chew tobacco, although I do not know where they get it!

I do not know where they sleep, or if they sleep.  I know I go out early in the morning and there is no sign of them, and suddenly the air is full of them.  Insecticide does not phase them.  I did buy something once that the man told me makes them sterile.  Birth control for grasshoppers??  That did not work either. I think it actually increased the horde!

I have seen my mother goose try to catch and eat one, but she failed in that endeavor, so I am guessing the geese prefer grain.

So, I am praying for frost.  It will not kill them, but it slows them down.  Back in the days of the pioneers, they talked of "herds of locusts, that blocked out the sun!"  They don't fool me.  It was those damn grasshoppers!  

They can put a man on the moon, but they cannot find a spray to eliminate the grasshoppers.  So what can we do to get rid of them?

 My answer to this is , "who knows?"  Just pull up my big girl pants and move on!  Winter will come someday!

Sunshine and grasshoppers!

 We are in the middle of a heat wave....again.  This probably does not come as any big surprise to most of you.  While the heat is almost unbearable, I have another problem out here in the country.  That problem is grasshoppers.  They are every where!  Or at least they seem to be everywhere.  I could rephrase that and say, "they are everywhere I try to walk!"

Grasshoppers are fascinating little creatures, to say the very least.  They have barbs or something on there feet or legs that is very disturbing to my skin when they land on me.  Now, granted, they do not make contact with me very often, but once was enough.  The fact that they are ugly as sin does not help at all!  So when one does land on me there is a lot of jumping and screaming going on from my body.  

Now I have a lot of weeds out here on my little acre.  I try to keep them at a manageable height with my mower called a weed whacker.  It has 2 high wheels in the back and a nose out the front with a string trimmer.  This thing is very powerful and can sling a rock the size of a lemon through the garage window in a split second, but it does not harm grasshoppers!  Nothing harms grasshoppers!

Now, I speak as an expert on grasshoppers because I have tried everything!  I even got a bag of something that is supposed to make them sterile.  Now, it will not kill them and it takes a season to get them all sterilized, or so the instructions on the bag said.  So the spray that was supposed to kill them only made them bigger and meaner!  The sterilant appears to be more of an aphrodisiac then any means of birth control!

One would think that with a ratio of 40 grasshoppers per every square foot of weeds I have that at the very least I would get rid of the weeds, but that is not happening either.  I have no idea what these beasts actually eat.  They do not trim the grass.  They do not eat the weeds.  The trees still have their leaves and the geese eat the garbage.  

I have thought about moving in to town, but I can not find an apartment or house that will allow me to have 7 adult geese.  And on that subject, how long does a goose live?  My friend looked it up on google.  Now google knows everything!!  It told us, a goose lives 16-17 years under ideal conditions.  Ok.  I got these geese for Bret when he was 6 or 7 years old and he is 31 now.  You do the math!  Hell, even Google is jerking my chain!

So, as I try to type with the cat laying across the keyboard and the grasshoppers laying in wait right outside the door, I am trying to count my blessings.  Actually, they are many!  I have a computer that works, a refrigerator full of food, and friends who love me!

Peace!  

Continued from yesterday.

Here is Icarus looking all innocent.  Such a joy to behold.  But think again!

This is where she was just about 10 minutes ago.  This is the cover over my deck and I do not know how she got up there.  Nor do I know why!  Pretty sure there are no mice on top of that thing.

So just walking around looking for lord only knows what.

Oh, hi there mom!  What are you doing down there.  Come on up and let's try to figure out how to get down.  Oh, you could just trot on out to the garage and bring the ladder and then carry me down.

Enjoy me while you can because I am getting ready to go hide in the sunflowers.

Told you so!

Oh, well, one thing nice is if she is hiding or up on the roof she is not batting vernin around the kitchen.  Don't you wish you had a cat like this?  If you have a cat, it probably IS like this!