Earlier today, being the good little house wife that i am, i was hanging the laundry on the clothes line. The clothes line is attached to the deck but its up very high so i have to use a stool with two steps to reach it. So i was up there swatting the black flies away whilst trying to keep my balance when a leather jacket flew into my face freaking the poo out of me. i came so close to falling off backwards.
On a different note, for some reason i’ve always called leather jackets mother f#&*ers. I dont know why or where it started.
Then this evening there was a wasp in the screened in porch and my kitties like to go out there to watch the birds at the bird feeder so i knew the wasp had to die or it might sting a kitty. So i got a can of raid and just sprayed him enough to make him fall onto the sill. Then i got a screw driver and cut him in half so he wouldnt suffer. But the half with the head and the bum half were both still moving really a lot. In fact the head half was even trying to fly. So i cut off his head. Then his head, middle bit and bum wiggled for almost an HOUR. I kept going back and was shocked and grossed out every time i looked. My husband said to stop looking.
So I turned on the computer and was reading straight dope when i realised both my ankles were itching like mad! I looked down and saw three mosquito bites on one and two on the other!
So now i’m all crabby, itchy and grossed out. Stupid bugs.
I’ve just been informed that they are not called leather jackets. They are crane flies. My husband said he always wondered why i called them leather jackets but never asked. I have no idea why i thought they were called leather jackets.
Hmm. In Dallas, TX we have YELLOW jackets, no leather jackets. Well, at least in the bug category. Leather jackets are worn by humans during the 1 month out of the year that it’s cold enough to wear a freaking coat.
June Bugs try to kill me every year. They had the NERVE to show up on May 31 this year (He-LLO! It’s not June yet). Childhood phobia, hate them with a vengence.
Mosquitoes are the big thing here. Every morning in the summer I wake up with at least ten new mosquito bites on my legs. The larger bugs seem to be a bigger problem (no pun intended) down south.
I saw my first crane fly when I was about 11. It was on the back screen door and I thought it was the great granddaddy of all mosquitoes. I decided I would never go outside again after seeing that thing but when I looked at my insect field guide and realized it was just a crane fly I calmed down.
Years later I was making an insect collection and saw what I thought was a cranefly flying around my parents’ porchlight. I grabbed it in my hand–and found out very quickly it was a wasp.
I was trying to figure out why you were hanging a leather jacket out with the rest of your laundry, and why on earth you had put it through the washing machine…
The bug I’ve known as the mosquito hawk is the dragonfly. It really does eat mosquitoes. It has two pair of clear, stiff wings, and it looks like a combat helicopter in flight.
