The Beginning and the End…

My day began with four-legged creatures, two legged creatures, and who knows how many other legs.  It all started when I came into the kitchen area and saw something dark streak across my pantry floor.  I thought it was a rat.  The evidence behind the fridge and freezer indicated something much bigger than a mouse. EW!  It still could be a rat, for all I know, but after Jacob helped me move the fridge and freezer, we found a big gecko hiding under the fridge.  Jake tried to get it…and missed, all except the tail.  That’s too bad, because now it will continue messing under the fridge and freezer.

Once the fridge and freezer were moved away from the wall, I swept up the stuff.  Then off I went to retrieve the mop off the back porch.  At that point I saw the pile of termite wings that had blown in during the night. I swept those up. Then, as I opened the kitchen door to retrieve the mop, a grasshopper flew on me.  I got that off of me and then picked up the mop, which, by the way, has a 2 ft. broken-off stub for a handle. When I brought the mop inside, I had to pick a few grasshoppers out of the mop, and then discovered that it was full of nairobi flies.  Not good. 

Nairobi flies are not truly flies, but beetles, and they don’t even fly. However, they are wicked. They do not bite or sting, but they are full of toxin.  If one is smashed on your skin, it will do give you something akin to a chemical burn, like this:

Fortunately, I did not get any on me, which is amazing, considering how many there were.

Needless to say, the the first half of my day was a little…challenging.  George, being the nice husband that he is, took us out to lunch.  After we came home, I noticed that nairobi flies were coming into the kitchen. Upon investigation, we found that hundreds more nairobi flies were swarming around a couple of plants that were outside, near the back porch.  We moved the plants and worked to clear out the mess.

Earlier in the day, George got a call from Carey, asking us if we had a bunch of grasshoppers.  You see…Editha, Charles’ wife, loves to eat them.  Carey was calling on her behalf.  Well by this time there weren’t many around that we saw, so we didn’t have enough to bother collecting. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they found plenty and cooked them up this evening.  They were so kind to share. To make a long story short, George, Jacob, Luke and Lindsey tried them.  Yuck is all I have to say about that. Pictures will be posted on our travelblog tomorrow.

The sun has long gone down, and my day ends with the flying creatures who’ve come back in force.  Flying termites are swarming the back porch and making their way under the door,  grasshoppers are flying around in our house, and the termites that have lost their wings and are crawling around on the floor.  We simply cannot keep up with killing them all. Oh…and there are some other kind of flying beetles that crawl around for the most part, but once in a while decide to fly and dive bomb someone. Don’t forget the mosquitoes!

I give up.  I’m going to go crawl into the safety of my mosquito net-covered bed and take refuge.  I hope all of these creepy crawlies have the decency to at least let me be while I sleep.  Seriously!