One bug, thirteen bug, red bug, lime green bug

My mom's got an entirely organic, natural garden in my backyard. It's beautiful, with a ton of different flowers and plants, and I can't wait 'till the yellow squash gets ripe (it's one of my favorite foods when it's cooked). A couple weeks ago, though, my mom discovered squash bugs on the squash. She made me catch two of the bugs to identify them and close them in little soil test tube. It almost made me cry to suffocate the little bugs, but I was told that it was war and they're the enemy. They chew up the leaves and make the plants die. Since she's all natural, she won't use pesticides (those are bad for the environment anyways. Y'all should see the lake near my house - it's going crazy with eutrophication.) and squash bugs are impervious to pesticides. Soo the only alternative is natural pest control, meaning we attract good bugs that will eat the bad bugs. The flowers are for that purpose. But that wasn't enough. We needed better weapons. In come the lady bugs and praying mantid eggs. This morning I had to shake 1800 ladybugs out of their mesh bag. Then I was relegated to the task of tying the mantid eggs to a tree so they can hatch. If you've ever seen a praying mantis, those things are freaking scary! They're all spindly and big and they're eyes are evil and then their mouth is in like a constant smirk (kinda like emus). And then they'll attack anything they think they can overpower: bugs, mice, snakes, hummingbirds, dogs... The egg sac would hatch between 200 and 300 mantids. Oh man. I'd never go outside if that happened. So as I walked outside to hang the eggs on a tree, my mom decided that maybe since she was scared of them too I should hang it in the little space between our fence and the neighbor's fence so we wouldn't get 300, but maybe just a couple. A couple we can handle, 300...oh my gooooodness. So I went through the space, got a thorn in my foot and thought I had touched poison sumac, all the while praying that the eggs didn't hatch in my hand and spout a ton of minuscule monsters all over me. Never again. I'll stick with the ladybugs next time. Or the bees and spiders. Not hungry, evil green sticks.

♥ j.j.