Summer of the Bug

This summer has been extremely hot and dry. Wildfires have burned rampant throughout the state. Gardens and pastures wilted and were eaten by a plague of grasshoppers. Whenever the temperatures rise and wring the moisture from the air creatures do what they can to survive. That usually means they move indoors. We've sprayed our house to the point where I've wondered who were going to expire first, the bugs or the humans. One insect that has taken up residence in our house is the camel cricket. This is a bug that we don't see very often.  It looks like a hybrid of a cricket and a volkswagen as you can see in this picture:

 

 

After Googling this bug I decided it may be a welcome guest because it will eat small morsels of food and even paper. I told Dorothy we should breed these and keep them in small corrals under the couch and let them out at night to  clean the floor as we sleep. She didn't think much of that idea. 

 

We've also been invaded by wolf spiders. These are large, aggressive arachnids that look like small tarantulas.  The will jump at you when annoyed, that's why I don't annoy them unless I have a fly swatter in hand. Their bite while not venomous is as painful as a wasp sting. You don't want to be looking for a camel cricket under the couch and see this: