Nature Thinks I'm a Monster.

There is a place near my home that has lovely woods, cool breezes, a creek and lots of nature.
I go there every day to walk the trails, watch the dogs play in the creek and just enjoy being outdoors.
The woods are peaceful.
The earth is nurturing
Nature is my friend.......until it bites me.
Then, I am a merciless, outraged, "Don't mess with me, nature", monster.

For the last week or so, only the portal to hell would seem sightly warmer than the town where I live.
Most humans are sweaty and irritable, air conditioners are blasting, most critters are hiding in the shade, and the insects......are having a bug wingding!!
They love it!
They are in your face, in your eyes, up your pants leg, biting my dogs, biting me, sucking our blood and apparently getting back at humans for one too many swats of the flyswatter.

The mosquitos possess hypodermic beaks and wing silencers for stealth sucking.
The gnats are suicide bombers aiming directly for your eyeballs.
Some of the deer and horse flies are so large they almost need landing gear and runways or they
could quite possibly replace Santa's reindeer in a pinch.
I have been swatting, smacking and scratching for days.
I am a giant itch.

As a result, there has been NO regret or remorse in the annihalation of these insects anytime they come near me.
So when we visit the woods these days, there is excercise and play, as well as death and destruction.
Today however, I saw, this little thing on me and did not immediately kill it. (See below)


The Sofa Foam bug.

It was in a hurry to get somewhere and I watched it scurry around.
I thought at first that it was an ant carrying something, because it kinda looked like a moving piece of old sofa foam.
(Old sofas follow me around from house to house so I am kind of an expert)
But no, this was no ant.
His tiny little legs matched his 'sofa foam' covering perfectly.


The Sofa Foam bugs little legs.

Curious, I watched for quite a while.
It was scurrying cutely around on my denim and then crawled down my leg, stopped for a minute on my knee to look around (or so I thought) and then.....bit me!!
Without a second wasted, I swatted it off and squished it.
No hesitation and no mercy was given.
Thinking that I would now come down with some foreign disease and die in 10 minutes, I had to find out what kind of bug it was.
I looked it up on my smart-aleck phone.

Dadgummitt....

I had squished a Green Lacewing baby bug.
This one was going to grow into a 'beneficial' bug.
The ones that are allowed to become adults eat the bad guy bugs.
Was this youngster practicing on me?
We will never know.
I felt horrible.
It was a reflex!?
A case of mistaken...no...not looked up before squishing, identity?
Who's side am I on?



Sofa Foam Bug. Adult
(Green Lacewing)

I was a monster today.
I am a bug super-villain now.
I am sure mother nature will send out the bug 'avengers' tomorrow and they will open a can of 'whoop-itch' on me.
But I will now, educatedly, use my monster super powers.
Big feet, fast hands and my big old trusty flyswatter.


Thanks for being here.


p.s. Being a lover of science, I must clarify that I was actually not bitten. There were pincers involved. The outcome would have remained the same, I am fated to say.