Thursday, August 5, 2010

Featuring AGGRESSIVE from "The Passive-Aggressive Mother"

It's been a weird day.  Both of my boys took naps THIS MORNING, at the SAME TIME.  That is so rare.  So I wasted a ton of time trying to figure out something really productive I could do and settled on 1) making cookies & 2) sweep and mop the floors.  Then this afternoon we got a short but giant rain storm.  It was pouring buckets for just 10-20 minutes and then it cleared right up.  I had to run a couple of errands but we waited until the rain had died down.  We drove past a group of kids tubing down the gutter.  No joke!  I wish I had my camera.  The gutter was WAY full and it was out into the street almost 10 feet and the kids were just playing with their inner tubes.  I tried to get out there and live it up like a kid, but Marshall said he'd rather stay inside than go jump in puddles.  Darn.  I guess I'll convince him next time.  You'd think this would make for a heavenly day.  I thought so too.  But the last couple hours have been a jumble of weird emotions that only find their way out every once in a while.

Well, we got home and I decided we better check out the damages to my humble garden that consists of spaghetti squash, serrano peppers and tomatoes.  I have three pepper plants, but only one has produced any fruit and its been tiny.  Well, I noticed that the producing plant looked like the rain knocked all of the leaves off and then I saw them.
These three giant caterpillars ate all the leaves off my ONLY PRODUCING PLANT!  My voice was on the verge of screaming as I was calling them "stupid bugs" and telling them they are not welcome in my garden.  Apparently my suffering garden broke this camel's back.  I was so furious.  I exclaimed, "I'm gonna go inside and get my camera so I can take a picture of the little jerks!"  Marshall thought they were really interesting creatures but also didn't like that they had eaten the plants we've worked so hard on.  

Then I looked over to my squash and saw the critters I'd been suspecting for a couple weeks now...
SQUASH BUGS!

They're kinda hard to see, but a small fraction of them were clustered on that dead leaf.  I started cutting off all the leaves they were camping out on (to avoid the "torrential flooding" of the garden) and set them on the cement.  Then I realized I didn't want to squash all the bugs with my shoes, so I grabbed a shovel and let them have it.  Soon I can hear my dear oldest child,
"We are killing all these freakin' little jerks!"
  And then I turn around to find Tyler behind me with his own little shovel smashing what's left of all the little garden eaters.  

So here I sit, confessing my wrong doings.  I taught my son those naughty little words.  And I'm sorry.  Especially if he ever utters them in your presence.

8 comments:

  1. BA HA HA!!!!! That is so funny that Marshall would say that. And so NOT funny that those freakin' little bugs ate your garden! I would've smashed them with a shovel, too. I probably would have also taught my kids worse words than "freakin" and "jerks." So don't feel bad. :)

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  2. I feel your pain. Some of those freakin' little jerks are in our little garden too! I hope you sent them all to Heaven. :D

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  3. My deepest sympathies. I am garden challenged and didn't attempt it this year.

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  4. Oh the things we say in front of the 3 year olds ... only to hear it come out of their mouths - but sounding much cuter. Sorry about your buggies! That's the worst feeling, to have your work destroyed by something so tiny!

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  5. Ok..so, I'm pretty emotional having just had a baby, but I laughed so hard at your blog post that i cried...haha! I totally understand how frustrating life can be and I know that you will look back on this one day (and be happy you recorded it) and laugh your butt off!

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  6. Marshall is hilarious! I hate those tomato worms SO bad they give me the creeps. One year I killed like 40 of them in one day and eventually pulled out my plant because I just didn't want to deal with it. The next year I powdered poison on my tomatoes every single day so that I would never see them again... and this year, I just didn't bother. I'm so sorry about your garden that is super frustrating. I'm glad you killed those little jerks!

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  7. I just found one on a tomato plant in my backyard. I smashed it with my foot and it splatted all over the cement. It was gross! Thanks for sharing I totally feel your pain! It is frustrating to work so hard to grow something and then have a little (or huge) bug come in and eat it away or bite it once to kill it.
    Good luck with all of your living plants!

    Oh, by the way, those worms are so BIG and FREAKY! I am still feeling a little shaky from pulling that worm off my plant and squishing it.

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