The Grasshopper Dance is still a fad!

Several times, I have mentioned how the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper strips the garden of anything edible.  This critter's voracious appetite leaves nothing safe!  I have seen where a once healthy, eighteen-inch tall squash plant would be eaten down to a mere stub in a few hours!  Every April and May, I wage war against these critters!  I receive no help from my bird friends with this job as the Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers are poisonous to most birds!  There is little in the way of insecticides that proves useful in this battle which is probably just as well as I have problems dumping toxic chemicals in my yard and gardens.  The most effective method of elimination is the good ole foot stomp!  When they were younger, my kids called this the "Grasshopper Dance"!  It was sort of like a grasshopper smashing variation of the "Twist"!

While I have told you how devastating these critters are to my gardens, I have never had proof..until today.  This morning I saw something wiggling around in the petunia bed.  The plants were wavering around more than usual in the slight breeze that was coming from the north.  Some creature had to be eating my petunias!  I was right!  I found six Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers munching my purple petunias!  Six!  Immediately the foot started stomping!   Each critter had to be handpicked from the branches of the petunia plant and thrown out onto the hard ground where it could be more readily smashed.  After getting rid of five grasshoppers, I watched the final one for a few minutes.  It seemed oblivious of the tragic end of its friends..perhaps it was thinking that it now had the entire garden to itself!  The competition had been eliminated!

The grasshopper was making quick work of one of the petunia blossoms.  It had started munching at the tips of the petals and within thirty seconds had already devoured the entire two-inch bloom!   Those are some powerful jaws and one healthy appetite!  After taking several pictures, this one met the same fate as its five friends.  Now before anyone decides that it was a cruel fate for a critter, let me assure you that I have not compromised the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper's population one iota.   Even though each year, I probably kill a zillion or so of these critters, the mass reproduction always insures that there will be zillions more the following spring.  Unless I find some better way of ridding the yard of these pests, my gardens will never have a chance to grow.  My yard will be a barren wasteland of dirt..no healthy greenery at all will be left untouched!  Yep, the foot stomping will continue as long as necessary!