Last Saturday morning...

I walked out my backdoor to see this...

Once out the door, I got their full attention. They had been waiting...

...and, in the rain.

I was getting quite the staredown. Maybe they were just being considerate and were checking to see if I got their message which took all summer for me to figure out. "Maria, just go for it. Honestly, we don't care what it is." I think more likely they were done with their summer eating and before they left, they wanted to make sure that I knew that they appreciated the datura. Maybe next year I could add to the menu since they were going to bring even more of their friends and family.

This one started crying because I told them datura would not be served next summer. It was permanently off the menu (I know, I know, I'm a mean, mean woman. I appreciate their thanking me and their kind farewell thoughts but one summer of grasshoppers is enough).

When I left them and walked down the deck steps to the yard, it was just like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," just with grasshoppers playing the parts of the birds. The backyard was full of baby grasshoppers-all kinds, and crickets, all colors. Leaping, leaping, leaping. And then on Sunday, nothing. They had all left. All of them. I haven't seen one grasshopper since.

But when one party leaves, the next party arrives.

See that cat in the background? Not mine.

See this cat? Not mine. I don't even like him. He's one of those cats that if you pet him once or twice, they will turn around and bite you. I have a scar. But he still shows up to be fed every once in a while. I'm not sure if he's a stray or not. Hard to tell. One time he showed up smelling like cigarettes so who knows where he goes or what he does on his food route around the neighborhood.

"Lady, the food goes in here. Hurry up."

This is the poor cat I do try to feed. Eli used to live a couple doors down the street but that family moved. Eli was a feral farm kitten when he was adopted and decided after a couple months of being indoors, it was not his lifestyle. He left that house and never went back. I've been feeding him weekdays for three years now. And after all that time, I have never been able to touch him. I don't see him that often on weekends because he gets his meals from another neighbor down the street, but only on weekends. 

He's a very polite cat. He will come to the backdoor and find a good vantage point on the deck so he can stare into my house to try and get my attention when he wants something to eat or just some light conversation. He has a very hard life but he's 95% feral and even if he wasn't, I have a house full of birds, as well as Violet who is not too enthused about sharing her indoor life with other cats. And being a feral cat, he is not adoptable. This is probably the best sort of life he can have but at least he does have two people feeding him. That makes it a little easier for him.

The local volunteer animal group that spays and neuters stray or unwanted cats now releases the unadoptable cats (after spaying/neutering) back to the places where they were originally trapped. Their reasoning is that there is a need to have a few cats in the neighborhood to keep the mouse and rat population down. There was a big problem with rats in my neighborhood several years ago. I remember finding a dead one on my driveway one morning and since it was trash night, I decided to just put it in a bag and then throw it out in the garbage later that night. The only bag I could find was a shopping bag from a high end women's clothing store which had lots and lots of tissue in it. So I wrapped the dead rat in the tissue and then stuffed the rest of the tissue in the bag and left it on the front porch. It looked pretty, like it was a gift. When I got home from work that night, the bag was gone. Ha ha ha!!!!! Cats might help keep the rodent population down but I'm not sure what's big enough to keep the criminal element in check. I'm hoping whoever thought he had a big prize when stealing that bag from my porch, thinks two or three times before trying that again. Ha ha ha. Still makes me laugh. :-)

Gawd. Now they're hopping around stark nekkid.

This is a shell of a grasshopper that just moulted. Creepy. Creepy. Creepy. But fascinating if you look at what their exoskeleton covers--the antennae, the eyes(!)...but where the heck is the bottom half of him? I would have liked to have watched this new grasshoppper find his way out of his old body (even though my skin is crawling just thinking of it) but I JUST missed it.

I'm thinking this is the guy who just ditched his old duds. He (she?) has that fresh look to him. Kind of a short bottom end too come to think of it. Click on the image for maximum grossness. Same goes for the above image.

When these new grasshoppers emerge from their old exoskeletons, they pump themselves up with air so that when their new shell hardens, it will be bigger than what they need at the moment. Once they harden, that's it until they moult again because the exoskeletons cannot get bigger after they've hardened. Grasshoppers moult several times and the last time they moult they will have wings that will be big enough to get them airborne. If you look at the shell in the first image, you can see the baby wings.

And as always, if there is a grasshopper doing something inappropriate, there is always another grasshopper close by to take in the whole show. Here's another baby bird grasshopper, a very wide-eyed one.

Little girl bird grasshopper

If only all grasshoppers could be this cute. She is such a perfect green and looks so pretty on the matching green boston fern leaf.

A nice guy at BugGuide identified her for me. She's a bird grasshopper and he said she was going to get a lot bigger. When I read up on her, I guess it's a lot bigger. The reason she's called a bird grasshopper is because she will get to be as big as a bird and she will fly like a bird. Will this grasshopper horror in my backyard never end? Eeeeee. I have never looked so forward to the first frost.

But just look at that face. I especially like the yellow rimmed cartoon eyes. Hopefully she'll be in another yard, in another neighborhood, if I'm lucky, in another state when she gets her grownup wings and learns how to fly.

Still, I have to admit she's pretty darn cute, even if she is a grasshopper.

Cue the theme from "The A Team." Help has arrived.

"I heard you needed some help."

"I see the problem."

"Come here chicken.....chick chick chick chick chick chickHEN!!!!"

"Chicken? Huh, whodat?"

(they slowly edged toward each other............ slowly................carefully..............slowly.......maybe a little more slowly for one of them.......)

(closer.......closer.........carefully.................closer.......)

"Okay, now would be a good time for you to jump........"

"Zzzzzzzzz...."

"DUDE!!!!" "WAKE UP!" "You really have to lay off the datura. Now listen to me. Focus. If you don't jump now, I eat you. End of game."

"Wha'?" "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

"Oh, this is ridiculous. Here, let me give you a little push." 

"Idiot!" "Okay lady, that's one down. How you holding up over there?" 

Errrrrgh. They're back.

I didn't write anything on Thursday because I was too stunned with what happened over a five minute period. Lightning was involved.

Violet raced in the house because her doppelganger appeared. I had never seen this gray cat before but I had to make sure the right gray cat was in the house and the other remained outside. A few minutes earlier, nothing. A few minutes later....this. Look at the one on the right, how many party dudes  is he expecting? Those other two grasshoppers...I have no idea what they're eating, I'm just assuming they brought their own chips.

And of course these two were going at it again.

And then it started to hail. Hail!!!

Mysterious evil twin cat, sudden appearance of a dozen grasshoppers, hail and lightning, all within a five minute time period. So for the rest of the night (because that's a list of omens if you ask me) I stayed off the computer, stayed indoors, locked the doors and made myself a drink.

Grasshoppers (continued)

I went out this morning, looked down at the datura, and those two grasshoppers were still there!!! A little out of focus but still giving me a good staredown. Oh just as proud and happy with themselves as they could be...sprawling in the sun, getting a good breakfast...la la la...

I had heard that grasshoppers could eat a plant right before your eyes but had always thought that was an exaggeration until I witnessed this. Look at this guy! Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. That flower was disappearing in front of my eyes. I could hear it disappearing! 

Datura is a very poisonous plant to humans. It can be deadly. I'm very careful around this plant but something had been munching on it for the past couple months and since I saw no bug carcasses, I could never figure out what was doing it. Until today. When I walked onto the deck this afternoon, I got the creepy feeling that not one grasshopper was staring at me...I was sensing  more like a couple dozen.

They were everywhere. Little grasshopper heads just staring at me on the deck lattice with their drugged out smiles. I mean really, look at this.  Look at that smile.

And look at this guy...

The reason the grasshoppers don't jump when you accidentally disturb them in my backyard is because they're too darn stoned. Every one of them had this stupid look on their face.

And I do not want to be around when they eventually wake from their stupor. Eeeeeeeee! The things just give me the creeps. Did I say that already? Well, I mean it.

Grasshoppers (not for the squeamish...or the underage)

Something didn't feel right...something was watching me.

And I wasn't imagining it because there he was. He had just moved around the corner of the post when he figured out that I was on to him.

And moved around the corner again.

Oh yes. One more time. Why was he being so stubborn about that spot? What had he been looking at?

What the...?

Oh for shame!!!!!!