Are you eating?

The natural world never ceases to amaze me. If you keep your eyes open you often see something new. Last year was the first time I noticed that once and a while when I shot a grasshopper with a BB a parasitic worm emerged.

This year I vowed to collect a few and take them to my favorite old entomologist. I was only able to get worms out of females with well developed eggs at the rate of about 20% for the hoppers on the ground and approaching 100% of the hoppers that act slow and have assumed a high position on my raspberries.

These five worms are out of one grasshopper!

Here is their super cool story. They are called nematomorphs or thread worms. This is the larval stage. The adults are aquatic worms that mate and lay huge numbers of eggs that hatch into tiny larva that are eaten by aquatic insects. They immediately encyst themselves and wait for the aquatic insect to metamorphose into something with wings. The encysted worm gets a free winged ride to land. Hoppers are omnivores and eat pretty much anything, including dead insects with larval worm cysts which once ingested start growing inside the hopper. This larval stage is the only stage that eats, yet they have no mouth, no anus, no digestive system at all, and no circulatory or respiratory system, either. They simply absorb everything they need. But here is the cool part. These worms know how to affect grasshopper behavior! They need to get back to water to become adults, mate and lay eggs. They get the hoppers to commit suicide by throwing themselves into water to drown. The worms emerge, turn into adults and the cycle starts over. If you see a dead hopper in your cat or dog's water dish, look for worms. I did see, I did look, and I did find. How's that for a little knowledge going a long way to open my eyes?

My old entomologist told me that it is damn near impossible to identify species from the larva, you have to put them in water and let them turn into adults so you can tell them apart. Guess I have to wait to find out. But I better get a few more. I'm headed into the garden tomorrow armed with a BB gun, some tweezers and a glass of water. Wish me luck.

Palouse Moose!

Getting to see a moose in a wheat field doesn't come around every year, but I'm guessing it is about number 6 for us. As we loaded into the truck this morning for school, straight ahead on the horizon in Robert's field, silhouetted by morning light was the unmistakable frame of a moose. I pointed, yelled moose and ran inside to grab the binoculars. Of course Ben thought we were about to be attacked by a herd of rampaging moose; poor guy got a pretty good adrenaline surge.

Young bulls are wanderers and go looking for new territory when mom kicks 'em out. Sometimes they go farther west than they should. West of here doesn't hold much moose habitat, so he will probably wander back into Idaho or north to the Turnbull eventually.

We saw one swimming down the Clearwater once, it emerged from the water and started running down the bike path towards Lewiston. Bet he had an interesting day.

Warning Signs of the Times

These are from the Happy Mutant Handbook by Riverhead books. I've posted these warnings on our various labs over the years. I needed to refresh some and went through the trouble of scanning them to print at home so I thought I would share. Enjoy!

Refinement

Everything seems to benefit from a bit of refining. People, protocols, techniques, strategies, kitchens, all improve from a tweeking aimed at being a little better and more efficient. One of the joys of my marriage is always working to make it better. We've always worked well together, and worked together well. As life changes we even find the need to reshuffled the furniture into new optimal locations occasionally. Everything can always be rethought. But sometimes you have to stand back and say, yup that's it, that's good.

I'm done tuning the slingshot. It is freaking perfect. If you are in the neighborhood, come give it a pull. It will make you smile too, and it's a good whole body workout. Way better than going to a gym.

Hugh Jass

Caught a bit of whimsy Saturday night after a long hard days work in the garden and built this Hugh Jass slingshot. It is made all out of Yew wood that was stripped of it's bark in an Idaho forest to make the anti-cancer drug, Taxol. When the 5K year old Ice Man mummy thawed out of the glacier on the border between Austria and Italy in the early 1990s he had with him a Copper ax with a Yew wood handle and an unfinished Yew wood bow. It was the right wood for this task too. She hucks a wormy apple a lot farther than I can!

FYI I just happen to know Hugh Jass' Safeway Club Card info if you ever shop at Safeway and want to chuckle. His phone number is 509.397.1234 (he lives at 666 Church street in Colfaxberg). Use the phone number and you'll get a receipt that says Hugh Jass and you might get the pleasure of having someone say, "Have a nice day Mr./Mrs. Jass"

Once a checker commented on the phone number saying, "That is an easy one to remember." To which I replied, "You don't think I'm going to give you my real phone number just for the sale price do ya?" When the number worked the checker said, "well it must be somebodies phone number Mr. Jass." Guess I should have said, "I'm not giving you my real name just for the sale price, either."

Kristi used it at a Safeway in Lewiston once and got a shocked look from the night manager, who whipped out his own Safeway Club Card receipt and you know whose name was on it? Hugh Jass! Nice to know there are other happy mutants out here. Ain't life grand?

Justin Case

Just in case you thought we were overplaying the "plague card" when discussing the number of hoppers on the Box 4 Ranch this year,,, I offer more photographic evidence.