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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 2, 2022 14:46:02 GMT -6
Yep, I have four Cotton Patch geese and two Canadians. The rest of the Canadians flew away last Fall and never returned. At least not where I can see them. I hear geese on our neighbor's pond every day, they may have joined that bigger flock? These two are just adolescents. The Cotton Patch Geese hatched them this Spring, from eggs that were removed from a nest in a place where there were unwanted geese.
The people there paint the eggs with oil each Spring, in an attempt to lower the goose population. I told them I wanted a few to hatch here. I just turn them loose in the pasture to graze each morning. They come back in the evening, crying to get back in. I love watching them fly in and out of the trees each day. I think they are happy here or else they would surely leave.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 2, 2022 16:09:53 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, I learned something there, I never knew that geese like grasshoppers that much.
chrysanthemum, I hear ya', we had a deer get inside a chicken pen years ago that had the door left open. It couldn't jump out and couldn't find the door again. When it did finally get out, we were left with what used to be a chicken pen. When deer get trapped and excited, it ain't purty...
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spike
New Member
Posts: 39
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Post by spike on Aug 6, 2022 19:35:47 GMT -6
I actually saw my first hopper today. LOL Much to my husbands dismay! When he was a teen, he went with the church, (his dad was the preacher), to Ecuador to build a church. While there something hit him in the chest. He looked down, eyeball to many eyeballs of the biggest grasshopper he ever seen. Naturally the hopper hooked onto his Tshirt and held on for dear life as he flapped his shirt and freaked out. Some little kid came and pulled the hopper off him and stepped on it with his tiny bare feet. Which totally freaked out hubs more. Now the kids down there would tie strings on the hoppers and fly them around but poor hubby has never seen grasshoppers in the same light. They just give him the willies.
I also remember living in Arizona when the plague of hoppers arrived in Laughlin. People trying to go to the Casinos were weirded out by the huge mounds of them.
Gosh my stories are gross
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 6, 2022 19:50:17 GMT -6
I actually saw my first hopper today. LOL Much to my husbands dismay! When he was a teen, he went with the church, (his dad was the preacher), to Ecuador to build a church. While there something hit him in the chest. He looked down, eyeball to many eyeballs of the biggest grasshopper he ever seen. Naturally the hopper hooked onto his Tshirt and held on for dear life as he flapped his shirt and freaked out. Some little kid came and pulled the hopper off him and stepped on it with his tiny bare feet. Which totally freaked out hubs more. Now the kids down there would tie strings on the hoppers and fly them around but poor hubby has never seen grasshoppers in the same light. They just give him the willies.
I also remember living in Arizona when the plague of hoppers arrived in Laughlin. People trying to go to the Casinos were weirded out by the huge mounds of them.
Gosh my stories are gross You ever tried to cook him up a batch? LAUGHING!!!
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Post by woodeye on Aug 6, 2022 19:55:15 GMT -6
I actually saw my first hopper today. LOL Much to my husbands dismay! When he was a teen, he went with the church, (his dad was the preacher), to Ecuador to build a church. While there something hit him in the chest. He looked down, eyeball to many eyeballs of the biggest grasshopper he ever seen. Naturally the hopper hooked onto his Tshirt and held on for dear life as he flapped his shirt and freaked out. Some little kid came and pulled the hopper off him and stepped on it with his tiny bare feet. Which totally freaked out hubs more. Now the kids down there would tie strings on the hoppers and fly them around but poor hubby has never seen grasshoppers in the same light. They just give him the willies.
I also remember living in Arizona when the plague of hoppers arrived in Laughlin. People trying to go to the Casinos were weirded out by the huge mounds of them.
Gosh my stories are gross You ever tried to cook him up a batch? LAUGHING!!! If you do, use macmex's method and drown them first to make them lose their stomach contents. OR, at least step on them first like that little kid from Ecuador did...
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 6, 2022 20:13:41 GMT -6
If you step on them and let them dry out a day or so, you’ll have sail hoppers. You can pick one up, chunk it and it will sail clean across the yard.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 6, 2022 20:24:51 GMT -6
If you step on them and let them dry out a day or so, you’ll have sail hoppers. You can pick one up, chunk it and it will sail clean across the yard. That actually sounds like fun...
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Post by macmex on Aug 7, 2022 5:43:20 GMT -6
Spike, for just an instant I thought your husband was an mk (missionary kid) but reading more carefully I understand he's a pk (preachers kid). Made me chuckle. I thought you were going to say that the little kid walked up, plucked the grasshopper off his shirt and ate it!
Interestingly, around 2010 our youngest daughter studied abroad in Ecuador, for six months. At one point they spent a couple weeks along the Amazon River, in the rain forest region. When they stepped off the plain onto a jungle airstrip her companions all gasped in the heat and humidity. They couldn't believe it. My daughter probably didn't say anything but she later commented to us that her first thought was, "What?! This feels just like home." She even warned the others, while out along the river, to stay away from a given area because it looked like a "chiggar spot." They didn't and ... came down with chiggars. The biggest difference between climates there and here is that we get much less rain.
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Post by rdback on Aug 7, 2022 11:03:45 GMT -6
Saw this guy in the garden the other day and thought of my Oklahoma friends.
Two-striped Grasshopper
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 7, 2022 19:18:51 GMT -6
I'm gonna try to attach a video file of the grasshoppers in my garden. The crunching sound they make when you step on them is the same sound they make when you eat them.
Never mind, the video I shot was too large to download. I'll have to try to shoot a shorter one tomorrow.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 7, 2022 19:37:50 GMT -6
I'm gonna try to attach a video file of the grasshoppers in my garden. The crunching sound they make when you step on them is the same sound they make when you eat them. Oh what fun! I have always loved parallelisms like that last part...
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Post by hedgeapple on Aug 7, 2022 20:36:57 GMT -6
As much grief as they cause, grasshoppers play a role in one of my favorite memories from childhood. I was 5 years old and my father took me to visit "Pop" at his nursing home. Pop was my GGrandfather and beloved enough that my dad named me after him. I remember him there in his bed saying to me "Look, Mr. Grasshopper has come for a visit" as he motioned to the window where a large (to my eyes) green grasshopper was resting for a minute.
Pop was no stranger to insects - he had been a farmer and a carpenter for the railroad; spent his entire life working in the elements and it showed on his lean frame and spotted arms. But even there - right at the end - he was still able to find and share a small bit of wonder with a little boy. He was such a kind soul. I never see a grasshopper without thinking of him.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 7, 2022 21:02:46 GMT -6
Thanks, for sharing that Hedgeapple. Your Great Granddad must have been a wonderful person. I would have enjoyed meeting him.
That memory reminds me of my first summer working at Jess Dunn State Penitentiary. I was bringing the plumbing crew back one evening and noticed a few of the men sneaking little bits of green grass and a few leaves into the maintenance area where our pipe fittings were stored. The shelves in there were set up sort of like a library, with rows and rows of small metal storage bins stacked about 6' or 7' feet high, each bin having a small label on it and a different sort of pipe fitting stowed inside. One of the bins closest to the outside door had a big ol' yellow grasshopper perched inside, happily residing on a short twig that had been wedged inside a 1" inch pipe Tee.
To my surprise, the grasshopper didn't try to fly when the door was opened or when the inmates laid their gifts of grass or leaves inside the storage bin. Somehow, they had made a pet out of it and every evening, it would be there in the same place, waiting for them to come back from work. Things like that always surprised me. One would expect a prison to be chock full of the most desperate sort of people, instead, from time to time, you'd be blessed to observe the most tender acts of kindness.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 7, 2022 21:03:30 GMT -6
That’s a beautiful story, Hedgeapple. Thanks for sharing it!
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Post by Tucson Grower on May 31, 2023 12:32:57 GMT -6
Here is a link to a product which might help us who have problems with these critters. Nosema bait. This bait is supposedly the only effective treatment besides toxic pesticides.
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