Honey Bees in Spring
April 22, 2009 by Merry
Filed under Animal Lovers
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Whenever I see a honeybee on a clover, I breathe a little sigh of relief. One of my relatives on the other side of Florida once mentioned to me that she planted a garden which never produced any squash. Anyone who’s ever planted zucchini knows the problem is not that you can’t get any vegetables from it. Pretty much the exact opposite is the case!
But my aunt, a real thinking octogenarian, traced it to the malathion spraying the state was doing to kill fruit flies a few years earlier. “I never saw any bees after that,” she told me.
I’ve planted a garden this year, but I’m holding my breath until the squash flowers present me with some baby zucchinis. I’ve got loads of cherry tomatoes, so I figure the bees must be around. If I lived in the country, I I’d have my own bee hives.
Hissing Cockroaches Make Oddball Pets
April 8, 2009 by Merry
Filed under Animal Lovers
Most people have heard of the hissing cockroach. There area people who swear by them as calm, good-natured pets. I have my own opinions on cockroaches of the American persuasion, but I know little about these creatures from Madagascar. Except, of course, that they hiss. Have you ever heard one?
They look about the same size as our euphemistically named “palmetto bugs” here in Florida. But that is one insect I will never feel fondly towards. The only other cockroach with which I have any familiarity with are the smaller, very sneaky brown bugs that inhabit certain dwellings in more northern climes.
Perhaps this is why, after 10 years of living in Florida, I still harbor such tender feelings toward northern California. I never once met up with a cockroach there.
