I've got 4 sticks of butter hanging out on the counter softening as I want to make a double batch of Oatmeal Craisins. I want to give some an elderly neighbor (who has the flu) and also to give some to Deb as a thank you bribe for taking care of the dogs while we're in Florida in a few weeks.
Anyway...I've had a pot of water steaming on the stove for humidity all morning and for some reason I look up to watch the steam rise and I see what appears to be a fairly big bug sticking his head out from between the ceiling and the crown molding.
"Son-of-a-bitch." I exclaim.
"What?" SM hollars from the other room.
"I've got a freakin cockroach taking a steam bath right over the kitchen stove!"
"It's probably dead." SM calls out unconcerned. Clearly dead roaches in my kitchen are not that big of a deal to him.
"No it's not! It just waved it's antenna's at me!!!" I say as I zing by SM to get the vacuum cleaner.
"I can't be making cookies with him looking down on me!"
SM wanders into the kitchen to investigate the crime scene. "It's just a stink bug." He says as I uncoil the electrical cord. "What are you going to do with that?"
"Vacuum him up." I say and try to suck the little bastard into the vacuum with the extender thingy.
"He's holding on for dear life with his little stinky legs." I say over the roar of the vacuum. He's stronger than my Dyson. I must say I'm impressed.
I flip the vacuum off as SM grabs a kitchen chair and my plastic cup from the table. "Hand me a toothpick." He says climbing up on the chair.
"Flick him into the cup." I advised...I didn't want boiling stinkbug in my kitchen.
SM flicked Mr Stinky into the cup where he buzzed around angrily and went out to the back porch where he tossed him outside into the crisp 20 degree morning.
"You saved the day again, Baby!" I told SM with a kiss.
SM has a history of this sort of thing.
Isn't it nice to know that my cookies are baked without extra preseravtives?
Yup, a little warmth and the bugs come out. I had a couple of lady bugs visit me earlier this week. I think I prefer them over stink bugs. Molly the cat tried to eat one.
ReplyDeleteEwww...I bet it was crunchy!
DeleteBugs in the summer are bad enough, but not at ALL appreciated IN THE HOUSE in winter time!
ReplyDeleteOn a middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom this fall, I flipped up the toilet seat and there, right where I was groggily going to plop my buttinski, was a big, ol' earwig! Eeeeuuuuw, I hate those things to begin with so I was kinda freaked out. You can bet I've never used the pot-tay since that I haven't checked before sitting down!
Did you wake up PapaPea screaming? BTW...SM says earwigs freak him out too. Finally a bug he WON'T save!
DeleteHmmm....that's the kind of chore I'd have to tackle myself. My DH wouldn't be as effective as yours. I'm a new reader and I'm loving what I see. Don't even remember which blog I hopped over from but it coulda been Five Acres & A Dream, Mama Pea's or somebody else.
ReplyDeleteThe lady bugs seem to want to come inside for the winter here, along with brown crickets.
Thanks and Welcome! I remember chasing a cricket around the house one night at 2am...tiny little thing but man...could he keep you upwith the noise!
DeleteI know it makes absolutely no sense, but why do roaches freak us out more than any other bug? We tend to get wood roaches in the house during the winter months because 1) we have a log home and 2) I occasionally bring in "hitch hikers" when hauling in fire wood. If we start taking wood from the pile that hasn't been touched in a while, you'll occasionally get a bunch of them under one of the logs you just picked up and no matter how many times it happens, I still let out a loud "Yuck!!" and pull back my hand like I've been bitten by a rattler or something.
ReplyDeleteDo roaches even have a natural enemy? I mean if we can't take them out, who does? SM says to be careful of spiders with all your wood. I expect you've got brown recluse and black widows where you are too.
DeleteSpider freak me out even more than roaches...
Oh yeah. We've got both recluse and widows. But we're so "used" to them it's like, "oh, another recluse....SQUISH" and go back to whatever it was we were doing. Sticky traps are AWESOME and we use them a lot around the house.
DeleteWhat a guy! He is truly a Keeper. We have a problem with stink bugs, too. The cats like to bat them around. Luckily, they have not tried to eat them. I'm waiting for the dachshund to try one - he will eat anything...
ReplyDeleteI've been finding those stink buggers in the house the past couple of years. No idea where they come from, how they get in, etc. Found one in the coffee maker once. Eeeeeeew!
ReplyDeleteAmazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here! I definitely learned a lot from reading through some of your earlier posts as well and decided to drop a comment on this one!
ReplyDeleteCool! At least you got your own enforcer to deal out a bit of balance in the biosphere. Those infestations are alarming, but they shouldn't be too much of a problem, indeed. There are a lot of ways to get rid of them. You just have to contact the right people and materials. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteDebra Owen @ Invader