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Last night, I was startled by an unexpected frog, Weasley caught a moth in the backyard that was so big I thought it was a bird and tried to rescue it, and then a centipede decided to join me in the shower.
Plague of locusts, anyone?
For the record, I'm not generally squeamish of frogs, but padding out to the mailbox in bare feet, I placed my foot on the sidewalk next to leaf roughly half the size of my foot. When the "leaf" alarmedly hopped away, I alarmedly hopped in the other direction.
As to the centipede, well, that's just rude. A gentleman would knock first.
Wondering if it's spring yet? Well, let me assure you: it's springing all over the place. I'm all for the "life finds a way" philosophical stuff, but does it have to keep finding a way into my shower?
It's not just the bugs that are encroaching. I spent a chunk of time this week doing battle with what some gardeners might call a morning glory, but what Shawn and I refer to as our venemous tentacula.
When we first planted the venomous tentacula, we had vision of lovely large purple flowers. Meanwhile, several learned green-thumbs of our acquiantance said, "Err... well... yes, but..." Plant it we did, and we have the lovely large purple flowers for much of the summer, but it's not the best behaved plant in the garden in many other respects. In the course of a summer's day, it can grow out of its bed, push its tendrils under the kitchen door, and stretch several feet across the tiles. Aside from breaking-and-entering, it's constantly feeling up the rose bush and getting so wrapped up with the fence post that the gate won't close.
After an hour, armed with pointy shears and colorful language, I freed the gate post from its clutches and filled an entire yard waste bin with tentacula entrails. I expect it will have planted itself in the walls of the plastic bin by now and will be sending out new creepers from its new depths by tomorrow. I should warn the garbage man.
I guess sometimes spring isn't so much the birds and the bees as it is the moths and the bugs. And the man-eating plants. Gardening's not so much my forte, but I dropped a six-pack of pansies in the ground yesterday just to feel like I had some measure of authority over the wilds of my small scrap of domain.
Here's to a false sense of security.