Linda, love those walking sticks! We used to see them all the time in the country, but here in town I rarely come across them.

We've seen more green Katydids this year....more than usual.....fewer Cicada killers...the last few years. I've always been fascinated with the CK....the way they hunt....searching the limbs of trees for their prey. Did you know how the CK gets the cicada to it's burrow? When they capture and paralyze one (with a sting)....they climb up the nearest tree (if not already in one) ...carrying/straddling the cicada to a high point...and launching themselves toward the burrow.....the path being like a hypotenuse of a triangle. Just a tidbit about them

Hello everyone. Just found this, and thought I would pop in. We have no cicada's here yet, but we do have the flies, and I have a lot of light brown fuzzy caterpillars in the garden, They try like the dickens to strip my angel trumpets. I smoosh everyone I find!
Finally got a bit of rain last night, still have thunder off in the distance, so hopefully more rain today! It has been so dry here.
Loved the stick bugs!

OMG! I saw a fig on my fig tree that had evidently ripened...and just look at it! I don't usually see these wasps or these beetles much, but this year things are different!

yuck! what is that big florescent green bug? I have lots of those noisy guys around here.

Green June Bug...I think? Of course, the wasps are yellowjackets. I prefer the red paper wasps, who are much less trouble! Yellowjackets are little troublemakers.

More insect news...did you see this? Awful! We've got a yellow jacket problem...I've had 3 stings and DH had one. Trying to get rid of the nest, but it isn't easy...underground on a berm.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/w...

OUCH! That is a lot os stings! We have a lot of wasp here also this year! So far I have sprayed at least 12 different nest!

oh my!! and those yellow jackets are quite agressive! They scare me!! I had a boss who was extremely alergic to yellow jackets so when we had a nest of them living in a drainage ditch right by the parking area, he was terrified... one sting could do him in! I think they took gasoline and poured it in there and caught it on fire. And it seems like they had to do it at a certain time of day, maybe the evening, to ensure that they were all in there.... not sure on the time of day, it the event is etched in my mind. they had to work fast!!! It worked. yellowjackets were gone.

We get lots of wasps around here too, all kinds. Last year we had a serious problem here with them... they were nesting in my dh's shop. He hadn't been in there in awhile and went in and opened it up and there were thousands of them swarming around. not exagerating either. and there were mice in there too. interesting thing was that there were hundreds of wings laying on the floor.... we think the mice must have been eating them?? that's all we can figure? but as nice as that was working out on a "nature taking it's course" standpoint, we didn't want any of them around!!! I'm not sure how many bombs he set off out there... eek!

boy, I sure have found myself rambling lately!
sorry!

I'm determined to do it organically....even if takes a while. I hate killing...even wasps. All those years we've been here, not one wasp sting. We lived in peace with the wasps we had. I guess we had no yellowjacket nests all that time, although there may have been some occasionally from elsewhere.

I'm the same way. dh has other plans sometimes but he usually loses the battle... except with his shop.

We have the wasps all over and they don't bother me either. Well, there was that one time when I wore a blouse with orange flowers on the front... I kept wondering why the wasps were coming at me & trying to land on me. It was crazy to the point I was yelling outloud at them~just me and the wasps "what do you want from me go away" it was funny really. I was smelling myself to see if I had some perfumy scent or something... nothing! finally I looked down at the front of my shirt and it dawned on me ~ they're attractred to the orange flowers!! I went and changed and that was that!! LOL

I wonder if there are some nematodes that will take care of them? I'll take a look in my pamplet...it seems like there is.