Checking Out Mother Nature’s Legs

Bugs have been on my mind since last weekend.  You see, Scott and I have hated the enormous stump in front of our house since July of 2006, when we moved in.  Scott has destroyed numerous chainsaw blades and other equipment trying to chip away at the four-foot round stump.  I have researched ways to remove the thing, but burning something that close to the house would probably be considered arson, digging holes for salt/chemicals/other things that speed up rotting would require equipment that we don’t have and removing the stump would mean dislodging roots that are holding ground in place dangerously close to the house’s foundation.  So, we decided to just live with the darn thing… maybe work it into our landscape design that never seems to actually manifest outside of my head.  Then, on Saturday, I walked by and gave that stump a swift kick – I couldn’t really tell you why I did that… it was something about the superhero movie we watched the night before and trying to show Scott my abnormal human strength.  You can imagine the grand-standing that I did when an actual piece of the stump fell off! 

After more kicking and digging, we found the source of my new found strength – termites!  As a kid, I was TERRIFIED that our house was going to be reduced to sawdust by termites every time I saw a pest commercial.  I would run to my parents, begging them to purchase the protection system.  My parents, well-aware of their daughter’s tendency for drama, would roll their eyes and reassure me that no termite was dumb enough to live in the sub-zero temperatures that are Wisconsin.  I find it very ironic that those same temperatures were to blame for Scott and I relocating to North Carolina – the state with the second most termites in the country (behind Florida).  That statistic is courtesy of our “termite guy” – the one that sold us that very expensive quarterly-maintained termite protection policy, that I was certain I needed as a kid (I must have been a gifted child). 

Apparently, all of the dents, dings and cracks that Scott’s saw blades left behind had created perfect crevices for water to sit.  Wet wood is like candy to termites (again, a fact learned from the pest defense guy).  Apparently, the termites feasted all winter long on a buffet of damp stump.  They managed to destroy in one southern winter what all of our power tools and research couldn’t.  By the time we were finished chipping away the damaged stuff and chain sawing at the newly exposed angles, the stump was a third of the size it was before – a giant step in the right direction!  Of course, all of this has prompted me to call the termite guy and wonder why our magic little green disks allowed the creatures of my nightmares to get so close to the house!

But, in case I have not given the Ol’ Miss Mother Nature enough props already… she managed to impress me all over again when I read this article.  For an unknown reason, the Yellow Sac Spider (clearly the least creative name for a bug ever), has managed to creepily force a recall of 65,000 Mazdas by weaving webs in the “evaporative canister vent line”, creating a fire hazard.  There are times when I can’t even get my husband’s attention, but somehow she has managed to get the attention of an ENTIRE car company – I am thinking all of that “leg” didn’t hurt!

So, this week I was reminded of me feelings for Bugs.  I feel the same way about them that I do about a lot of people… I have respect for who they are and what they do… but I don’t want them anywhere near me!  (ba-Dum-ba)