So I'm driving home yesterday when my friend Kelly (my walking buddy from the persimmons discovery) is pulling out of her driveway and stops her car, rolls down her window and says to me, "LOOK at my house!"
I look. Hmmm. Fresh paint job. Pretty wreath on the door.
"Yes, you must feel so good about it," I say, or something equally vacuous as that.
"No, LOOK at my house!" she exclaims again.
I look. I
look.
"There are little black dots all over it! Don't you see?" she says, exasperated with me.
And yes, there they are. Little black dots, which turn out to be on little orange wings. Hundreds of them. Ladybugs.
"What does it mean?" I ask.
"I don't know!"
"I think it's lucky," I suggest.
So I drive home to no ladybugs on my house. ("What's wrong with
my house?" I hear the snide little ten-year-old inside me ask.)
And all night at my karate class, while the chief instructor says "high block, middle punch, knife hand, jab," I hear, "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home."
And so there I am, back at home, hot and sweaty and tired and hungry, researching ladybugs.
Or should I say lady
birds, to those of you in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. Or the pretty word
coccinella in Italy (
coccinelle in France). Or, as my paternal grandparents may have said one day when noticing a little dot on the ship's railing while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Ellis Island, "
Slunecko!" Or even as scientists prefer, lady beetle.
Turns out these beetles from the family Coccinellidae are, yes, our helpful aphid-eating friends in the garden. And many people believe them to be lucky. But they are also considered a bit of an overwintering nuisance, if you think a house full of ladybugs is a problem. FYI, one thing I read suggests you put ladybugs you find in your house in a container and keep it in the refrigerator, where they will keep until spring when you then release them into your garden. This is another one that will really go over well with my husband.
As for defense, my karate partners and I could learn a thing or two from these bugs. When threatened, they secrete an odorous liquid from their knees. I'm surprised there's not a corporate industry that packs them in crates, squeezes their little knees and packages it as self defense spray.
Lady Spray. No, forget that. I bet this
is done somewhere already.
Better get Jerry Seinfeld on it. Could be a sequel to
Bee Movie.
So I'm driving home yesterday when my friend Kelly (my walking buddy from the persimmons discovery) is pulling out of her driveway and stops her car, rolls down her window and says to me, "LOOK at my house!"
I look. Hmmm. Fresh paint job. Pretty wreath on the door.
"Yes, you must feel so good about it," I say, or something equally vacuous as that.
"No, LOOK at my house!" she exclaims again.
I look. I look.
"There are little black dots all over it! Don't you see?" she says, exasperated with me.
And yes, there they are. Little black dots, which turn out to be on little orange wings. Hundreds of them. Ladybugs.
"What does it mean?" I ask.
"I don't know!"
"I think it's lucky," I suggest.
So I drive home to no ladybugs on my house. ("What's wrong with my house?" I hear the snide little ten-year-old inside me ask.)
And all night at my karate class, while the chief instructor says "high block, middle punch, knife hand, jab," I hear, "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home."
And so there I am, back at home, hot and sweaty and tired and hungry, researching ladybugs.
Or should I say lady birds, to those of you in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. Or the pretty word coccinella in Italy ( coccinelle in France). Or, as my paternal grandparents may have said one day when noticing a little dot on the ship's railing while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Ellis Island, " Slunecko!" Or even as scientists prefer, lady beetle.
Turns out these beetles from the family Coccinellidae are, yes, our helpful aphid-eating friends in the garden. And many people believe them to be lucky. But they are also considered a bit of an overwintering nuisance, if you think a house full of ladybugs is a problem. FYI, one thing I read suggests you put ladybugs you find in your house in a container and keep it in the refrigerator, where they will keep until spring when you then release them into your garden. This is another one that will really go over well with my husband.
As for defense, my karate partners and I could learn a thing or two from these bugs. When threatened, they secrete an odorous liquid from their knees. I'm surprised there's not a corporate industry that packs them in crates, squeezes their little knees and packages it as self defense spray. Lady Spray. No, forget that. I bet this is done somewhere already.
Better get Jerry Seinfeld on it. Could be a sequel to Bee Movie.