Bug-O-Rama
I will not complain about the rain. This is an oath I took last year during the drought. Since we’re on a rainwater collection system for our water supply, every crispy week last year seemed like an eternity. As our spring and creek dried up, we wondered why we’d paid so much money for land without a water feature. We harvested one $1,500 tomato from our garden.
Things are a little different this year. I’m afraid our rainwater collection tanks are going to explode. We went body surfing on our creek the other day. And we’ve got volunteer pumpkins and potatoes growing out of our compost pile that look like the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors.
And we’ve got bugs. In addition to plenty of the common variety — from lovable preying mantis, lady bugs, and lightning bugs to odious grasshoppers, chiggers, and mosquitoes — I’m seeing some bugs I’ve never seen before. They’re the kind of creature that makes you wonder if Mother Nature drops acid. Excuse me, Mother, but just where did you find these wild orange, black, and blue things with the green lumps on their butts?
And as if these colorful bugs and their kin don’t have me freaked out enough, when I showed up for my volunteer duty at the National Wildflower Research Center, I looked up from weeding to see two men pull up in a rental truck and begin unloading giant bug parts! Grasshopper legs the size of hockey sticks and ant antennae as big as oboes! Arrrgghh! I decided to take off running and hide in a cave, but before I could get too far I realized these big bugs are the creation of David Rogers and not a vengeful god. Rogers has fashioned giant ants, a
12-foot preying mantis, a dragonfly, spider, and grasshopper from found materials, mainly wood. They’ve arrived here direct from their previous engagement at Walt Disney World.
If you come out to the Wildflower Center (292-4200) to visit the creatures, you get a little booklet called Big Bugs for Little People. (I had to beg the gate attendant for one. “Do you have kids?” he kept asking me. “It’s really directed at kids.” I guess I finally convinced him I was immature enough to qualify as a rug-rat myself, so he grudgingly handed one over.) The booklet is packed with bug bits and trivia. You can tell the temperature by counting the number of chirps a cricket makes in 14 seconds and adding 40 to that number. And did you know that if you weighed all the plants and animals on earth, ants would make up 10 percent of the total weight? Did you want to know?
The big bugs will be in Austin through November 30. The little bugs will be here forever.
I’m not going to be here forever if someone doesn’t send me a question or two or 100. Is everyone on vacation? Come home and write me at: Suzebe@aol.com
This article appears in June 20 • 1997 and June 20 • 1997 (Cover).