Its a "grubby" job but...

Enough of this crazy weather!   I want my garden!  The winter weather is just going to have to leave since I spent hours upon hours planting my garden!  The coldframe or hotbed has been turned into a beautiful, raised herb garden where most of the seedlings can stay for the remainder of the coming summer.  Other seedlings will be transferred to the regular garden or to more raised beds depending on space.  Squash, radishes and green beans take up the rows in the garden while cantaloupes, watermelons and cucumbers will climb (hopefully!) on fences.  My garden space is severely limited and I am required to make use of any areas I can!  Still, the seeds are in the ground and I can breathe a bit easier now.  Michael is planning to dig some more ground as soon as the weather permits and a few other vegetables will be seeded.  For now, I sit wistfully looking at the seed packets with dreams of a lush garden.

While digging around in the dirt, I came across a fat grubworm!  I hear pros and cons about these critters and do not know whether to eliminate them or not.  Just how many grubworms are too many?  First of all, these are not actually worms but rather the larval stage of a beetle.  Some can do severe damage to lawns and gardens but then others are merely there doing their own thing.  I am hoping my grubs are the latter.  Anyway, I decided it was time to see if and what needed to be done about my grubworms.  The City of Fort Worth website has some great information about the critters!  The pictures there identified my grub as the larva of a June Bug.  Now, I like June Bugs!  Yep, I know they can be a nuisance when they fly into the house in the late evening but at least they do not harm anything.  Well..being a June Bug baby really helped this little guy!  He was already ahead of the game of life!  I read down further and found my answer about how many is too many.  The website said that if you find more than four to ten per square foot of sod..GET HELP!  Four to ten per square foot?  I found one in the entire garden!  I feel I am safe from the dreaded Grub Infestation.  My one lonely grubworm was set free to grow into a wonderful June Bug!  I know I will perhaps regret this action later this summer when I am pelted in the head by a June Bug but for now, I can feel like I did my good deed!  Plus, I know that I feel a bit of smug satisfaction over the fact that I did not dump masses of harmful chemicals in my ground trying to eradicate the grubs..or in this case..the grub.
 

Out to the Woodpile!

Oh, the things I do!  With the weather supposedly going to worsen here for the next few days, I decided that I better get out and split a little firewood.  Both of the menfolk in the house, Mark and Michael, have that cold or flu-like stuff that I had last week.  Neither of them needed to be out in the wet, windy weather so the job was left up to me.  I also needed to split and gather some kindling to start the fire if need be.  Since I am not sure just how far down this way the cold weather will come, I just thought it might be better to be prepared.  You know..one of those "better safe than sorry" situations.  So after getting them all settled in with coffee and breakfast, I headed out to the woodpile.

Now, first, let me tell you that I have not split wood in some time so I most likely will be feeling it more tomorrow than today! This morning...it felt good...tomorrow, maybe not.  I split some kindling first just to warm up, so to speak.  I wanted to make sure that I could still swing an axe!!!  Yep..that went well!  In just a few minutes, there was enough kindling for several fire-startings so I was set to move on to the larger wood.  I surveyed the pile and figured that I better just dive in if I was ever going to get this done!  A large log was chosen and set on end.  Wham!  With the first smack with the axe, I split that baby right in half!! Whew!  I was good!  Thinking that I had done something special, I proceeded.  This was not hard work at all!  Then I saw them..the ugly white grubs!  No wonder my logs were splitting so easily!  Grub worms had literally riddled the logs!  The once hard oak wood was now more like a type of cork with hundreds of holes gnawed throughout the log!  This was a dead oak tree that Mark had cut with the chainsaw just two weeks ago.  I am supposing that it was one that was damaged years ago with Hurricane Katrina and the woodborers infested through the damaged bark.  This had eventually killed the tree and now the grubs were merely eating their way through my woodpile!  

Our trees have taken a beating since Katrina.  Although we initially lost hundreds of live trees, the infiltration of beetles has continued to kill many more.  There is not a lot we can do short of cutting any infested tree.  This would mean that I would have no trees whatsoever left on the hillside.  Very few are good solid trees any more.  It amazes me that the effects of a hurricane can be felt this long after the fact.  The only thing that can possibly help us now is a healthy inhabitance of woodpeckers!  In fact, thinking back on it, I have noticed that we have had more nesting pairs of woodpeckers for these past couple of years!  Come on, woodpeckers...get to drilling those hole!  There are grubs to be eaten!

Grub Wars!

I was at war yesterday. At war with myself to be exact. Have you ever been at those crossroads where you know the "right" thing to do but that "right" thing is not what you really want to do? That was right where I was at! The war between right and wrong. The war between good and evil. The war between just and unjust. To be or not to be..that is the question. Oh, wait! That was not supposed to be in here! Anyway, I was torn..the decision was plaguing my mind and I had no answer. We were out cutting firewood in preparation for the oncoming winter storm, when we uncovered a mass of grub worms. You know the ones..white, round, rumply looking things. The ones that remind me of the Michelin Man gone bad. Yeah..those! As I said, we uncovered a mass of these things. They were sharing lodgings under an old oak log with a few billion other critters. The carpenter ants, ground wasps, centipedes and millipedes immediately scampered off to hide elsewhere but as you know..grub worms do not scamper. They just sort of sit there and pulsate like the Blob. My decision? The war in my mind? The fisherman in me said "Bait! Go fishing!" The logical being inside me said "Nah..it is far too cold and windy." The yard owner part of me said "They will ruin the lawn..these things cause brown spots." The lazy me said "Less grass to cut this summer!" The birder in me said "Feed them to the birds!" The humane me said "I can't do that..it would be cruel!" So ponder, ponder. Do I squish the smithereens out of these ugly little beings or do I just let them live in peace? I CANNOT DO IT!!! Go little grubs! Be free! Eat my grass roots! I quickly covered them with mulch to keep them warm. I felt better about the whole thing. As matter of fact..I almost felt like a hero! I saved their little peapickin' lives!

Now a few facts about these grub worms. Yes, they will ruin your nice, plush green lawn by making huge brown spots in the middle of it. Kill Them! The grubs or larvae eat the roots of the grass killing it. Kill Them! They damage your potato crops. Kill Them! They damage corn crops. Kill them! They are the larvae of June Bugs! Awww..cute little June Bugs! I like the cute little June Bugs! Don't kill them..let them, like all critters, live in peace. Grub worms won the battle!