Bugging Us

New Zealand is full of critters.  The nice thing about it is that most of them are friendly.  It has been a big change coming from Arizona, where you need to be wary of most of the bugs and creepies out there, to come here, where most of them are harmless.

The first couple of days, our kids would scream bloody murder when they saw ants.  "Ants!  Ants!  Don't let them get on me!" they'd yell.  Others would look at us puzzled.  Ants, apparently, usually do not bite here.  There are also a fair few of them around.  Once I found them climbing in orderly rows down my curtain rod to munch on crumbs from Seth's breakfast under the dining room table.  Creepy but probably not painful.

We see lots of spiders at our place too.  Short fat black ones, some with long spindly legs, little hopping ones.  Those suckers are industrious, too.  You can have a new web all over a corner within an hour.  Seems a shame to brush it away.

There's a plant outside our front door that the movers told us attracted monarch butterflies.  He said that they lay their eggs on it and soon there will be lots f caterpillars.  He may have just been messing with us, but we do have lots of butterflies swooping around outside.  Rowan has adopted them all and asked me to get a net so she can keep a few in jam jars.  Which is just what they want out of life, I'm sure.

Cicadas, snails, moths - and don't get me started on the birds. There's a pair of mynah birds livingin the tree outside.  They like to fix me with their beady eyes to let me know they wouldn't be averse to a few leftover toast crusts once in awhile.  There is a constant buzzing, chirping, warbing and singing going on outide.

My favorite, though, was last week when Rowan was making friends with a new, weird looking bug (a praying mantis).  The mantis was on our staircase leading to the front door and she was hanging out there talking to it and singing it songs.  A few minutes later she ambled inside.

"How's it going with the bug?" I asked.  She looked at me, chagrinned, and said, "It's so sad, mommy - that poor bug killed itself."

"Oh?" I asked, stymied.  "How'd that happen?"

"Well - he climbed right up to my shoe, and then squashed himself up on my shoe.  Because I was scared of him.  It was kinda an accident.  He shouldn't have scared me like that."

Tragedy, indeed.