Let's visit.....

[Reziac]

What with all the spring rain my place looked like Jurassic Weedpark. Then we had a plague of grasshoppers and they ate EVERYTHING (except the grass, what little there is of it) up to about 10 feet above the ground, including pine trees and other stuff they normally won't touch. Now they're eating each other! Good thing I never got around to planting a zucchini or tomatoes, there'd be nothing left.

Sucks when you gotta practically rebuild after a bad tenant... The key to getting good tenants seems to mainly be demanding a rather large security deposit... around here move-in normally costs two months of rent (first and last) plus a similar amount as a damage deposit. Also, furnished places (in non-college towns where it's expected) tend to attract losers who own nothing and won't care about your stuff either. Your renters may vary.

[seven of nine]

Originally Posted by rickers

My tomato plants don't look as happy as they should but I've got 1 tomato already ! (the plant was started indoors.) My rental on the rez was just vacated by another set of BAD tenants and the lawn is chest high. We took a whole truck load of their garbage to the dump for them. I hate bad renters ! Even my redneck cousins would make better tenants than the last two !

I completely agree. I and my kiddos spent many a day scrubbing rentals. Did lots of dumpster duty At least they are out and you have the property back. Take care of yourself.

[seven of nine]

Originally Posted by Reziac

What with all the spring rain my place looked like Jurassic Weedpark. Then we had a plague of grasshoppers and they ate EVERYTHING (except the grass, what little there is of it) up to about 10 feet above the ground, including pine trees and other stuff they normally won't touch. Now they're eating each other! Good thing I never got around to planting a zucchini or tomatoes, there'd be nothing left.

Sucks when you gotta practically rebuild after a bad tenant... The key to getting good tenants seems to mainly be demanding a rather large security deposit... around here move-in normally costs two months of rent (first and last) plus a similar amount as a damage deposit. Also, furnished places (in non-college towns where it's expected) tend to attract losers who own nothing and won't care about your stuff either. Your renters may vary.

Hard to believe they would eat pine. Man must be hard core grasshoppers, not your average fish bait! Does the rain bring them out or the extra growth? Yuck, I can only imagine the hopper juice.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by seven of nine

Hard to believe they would eat pine. Man must be hard core grasshoppers, not your average fish bait! Does the rain bring them out or the extra growth? Yuck, I can only imagine the hopper juice.

They also ate the rosemary, iceplant, and rabbitbrush, which even starving goats and jackrabbits won't touch. (Tho for some reason the coyotes eat the flowers off my yellow irises...???!! which the hoppers also ate down to the roots.)

I guess they must have come with the halfway-normal rains this year (first time we've had over an inch for the entire YEAR in about 10 years now) ... usually there are so few hoppers that if you catch and smush what you see, that's the end of the problem, and the tarantulas take care of the rest. I'd like to know where the heck the eggs were cached, cuz they sure couldn't have been from local production.

Didn't really want to poison them because the quail eat 'em and aren't fussy about whether it's dead or alive... but geez, this is ridiculous!!

Two years ago we got a ground squirrel invasion that was almost as bad -- lost all my young trees that year, cuz they ate the bark off 'em down to bare wood.

Contrary to popular perception, the desert seethes with life... AND IT'S ALL HUNGRY!!!!

[rickers]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Contrary to popular perception, the desert seethes with life... AND IT'S ALL HUNGRY!!!!

While camping in the Anza Borrego once I watched from my tent a fox and babies eating from a cook pot that still had some chili in it. She stood watch while the babies ate first. She never saw me peeking out the tent doorway just 4 feet away !

[Reziac]

We see kit foxes here sometimes -- little bitty things about the size of a small cat. Very shy -- you were really lucky to see one close up like that!

[rickers]

Kit fox ! If I remember correctly that's what someone said it was when I described it. I think it was sort of reddish with some white on it, it was about 25 years or more ago. I wouldn't have seen it but the rattling of the spoon in the pot woke me up.

[Reziac]

The kit foxes I've seen here are more grey, but there are probably other varieties. Main thing is they're really small and timid. Coyotes eat 'em just like they do cats. The oil companies leave old pipes laying out in the desert to create boltholes for 'em (they can get into the pipes but coyotes can't).

When I lived on Nelson Road near the East Gallatin, there was a BIG red fox in the area (probably about 30 pounds), and it would show up in the middle of the night and sit in my yard going WOO-WOO to make the dogs crazy. If I came out and yelled at it, it would just stand there grinning, yarp some more, then saunter away in its own good time. One night I went WOO-WOO back at it... It shut up, stared at me like I'd lost my mind, then trotted off looking like "Geez, this place is losing it", and I never saw it again.

[Broz]

Holy Crap Dorthy!! Grab ToTo and head for the barn. Tornados all around us here in MO. 10 warning in our area a few on the ground, tree on a car just south of us , high winds, hail.....

May the good Lord watch over everyone tonight.

...

[seven of nine]

Originally Posted by Broz

Holy Crap Dorthy!! Grab ToTo and head for the barn. Tornados all around us here in MO. 10 warning in our area a few on the ground, tree on a car just south of us , high winds, hail.....

May the good Lord watch over everyone tonight.

...

We are with you broz.
Hang in there.