When I was taking my dog out this morning, I saw my first ladybug of the season. She was walking on my weeds, and she had spots.
I took Abby back in the house, grabbed my 10 X Zoom digital camera and went to the weed to see if the ladybug was still there. She was, but my camera didn't work for the closeup shot. Even though I could get the picture zoomed in beautifully, the camera's autofocus couldn't go that close.
So I went back in the house, unpacked my (gasp!) film camera and set the telephoto lens on Macro setting, pulled the focus in nice and tight, and got back out to the weed, but the ladybug had gone on to somebody else's weeds. I lined up the shot as if the ladybug were still there, just to see, and it would have been OK, except she wouldn't have been as close as I pictured it in my mind. Good equipment is handy, but it's not always ideal. And living subjects rarely cooperate.
I was looking forward to the picture, because of the changes it would reveal in me. When I was in grade school, one of the neighbor girls told me that the spotted ladybugs were "POISON!" Since she'd never given me a reason to doubt her before, I believed her. After that, I only let the un-spotted ladybugs walk around on my finger and avoided the spotted ones as if they were spiders.
The fact that I let any bug crawl around on my finger was proof of how benign I saw the plain ladybugs. Bugs, and especially spiders, had the ability to paralyze me. There was one day, probably late grade school or early junior high, when I left my bedroom to go outside, but there was a gigantic spider on the hallway wall about face-height, and I would have to pass it to get to the door. I couldn't. I just stood there in the hall right outside my bedroom door, watching the spider to make sure it didn't get on me. Finally, I saw my dad, called him, and he came and dispatched the spider for me.
Bugs had the same effect on me, though if they were small enough and I had completely closed shoes on, I could stomp on them with enough heart-pounding adrenaline flooding my system.
But I let ladybugs (the solid red ones) climb up on my finger and tickle my skin. And when my mind started thinking about how those were really bug legs, then I'd pass the ladybug off to a friend or wave my hand until she flew away.
I conquered my fear of bugs when I had kids and decided I didn't want to pass on the paralyzing fear to my children. I still can't stand bugs and spiders, but the fear doesn't win anymore. And I wanted a picture of the "poison" ladybug as a reminder.
I'm sure she or one of her friends will be back.
6 comments:
Of course if you squish a ladybug between your fingers your hand will stink forever. A kid told me that so I know it's true.
I fear bees, wasps and such...especially those bumble bees that are about as big as a Buick.
The sight of a mouse makes me involuntarily say a bad word 90% of the time. They make me mad.
But snakes are OK.
Being pecked on the head by a Red-Wing Blackbird is a thrill. It happens when you get too close to their nest. They dive on you from behind.
Chris,
Bees?!? One time a swarm of wasps moved into the exhaust vent over my stove. They didn't get into the airspace in the house, but there were 9 dead ones inside the plastic panels of the lighting fixtures in the kitchen. I was so creeped out for a long time (I called an exterminator, who lived up to his name perfectly). Another time, a wasp stung me in the belly while I was sleeping in on a Saturday morning(All the houses in that neighborhood were built with wasp-attracting eaves. I don't live there anymore).
Snakes are OK.
Lizards are really cool. AND they eat bugs! I even saw blue-bellied lizard eat a wasp in my back yard (of the wasp-house). It did it in two stages: first it caught the wasp in its mouth, then it spit out the body, stripped of the wings and legs. Then when it was finished with the delicacies, it went back and ate the rest. Now, that's my kind of lizard.
We don't get mice much. But I carpooled with a guy who did. He used sticky-paper to catch mice, and his cat loved the mousie smorgasbord. They'd find nothing but four little mouse feet stuck to the sticky-paper in the morning.
One more thing. You might want to hang around Killdeer nests instead of Red-Wing nests. When you get too close, the Killdeer run the other way to try to get you away from the nest. It's a lot safer. Unless you like the thrill...
Oh, man. This comment is longer than my post.
Do you have "praying mantises" in California? I had one in a jar for a short while when I was a kid. I put a grasshopper in with it and it ate a hole in the grasshopper's head. Cool? Then my brother gave it some liver. They are so prehistoric looking. I always see a couple in my garden every fall.
We don't have lizards but there are probably salamanders around.
We have Killdeer. You've noticed how they feign a broken wing when they distract you from their nest? Amazing.
Chris,
No praying mantises here.
I can't imagine a place without lizards. What eats all the bugs? I mean, you guys have flies out there in the Midwest like nobody's business, or so I'm told.
At the last place I worked before this one, some Midwest guys came out, and we took them for lunch at the cafeteria's summertime Wednesday barbecue outside. While we were waiting in line, one of them looked around and asked, "Where are all the flies?"
I told him, "We don't have any." Really, we do, but not enough to notice. I get a fly in the house about two or three times a year. Nobody I know even owns a flyswatter.
We got some grasshoppers last year, but nothing ate holes in their heads, at least not that I noticed.
I live in a sparse-bug zone, and I like that aspect of California just fine.
Isn't it funny how all ladybugs are girls.
I like mice and snakes. I dislike roaches. We get those big 2- or 3-inch suckers sometimes. I stepped on one in the kitchen once, in my sock feet. My scream could have woke the dead.
Laura,
All I can say about the roach thing is EEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!! I'd scream too.
Give me ladybugs and pillbugs any day.
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