# Living squeak toy



## Chew Toy McCoy




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## Alli

As I sit here with a wasp on my ankle, I realize I pretty much love all critters.


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## lizkat

I'm a fan of a lot of crawly or winged critters but also have an exceptions list for water bugs (those things that look like a VW-sized version of a cockroach?) and cockroaches themselves, mosquitoes, garden slugs, potato beetles, stinkbugs, Japanese beetles and cabbage moths.

 But I do really like most wasps: they eat aphids, flies, stem-borers and other little garden pests like that without being particularly aggressive towards people, nd some of them, like the blue mud wasp,  are really beautiful.  I usually just co-exist with some paper wasps who build in the eaves of my deck every summer if I don't notice them early on.  If I do see some scouting the deck then I might make a point of stepping out there often that day so they decide maybe someplace else would be more fun to hang out.  I shoo them away from the lids of my LPG tanks if I see them scouting that location too, so they don't end up startling my gas vendor...


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## Alli

I finally gave up on the wasps since they door make delicious honey, and I always see them in my flowers. So they can stay. I love spiders, and we get really *BIG* ones here. Have you ever seen the big yellow banana spiders? My favorites. But I'm with you when it comes to cockroaches.


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## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> I'm a fan of a lot of crawly or winged critters but also have an exceptions list for water bugs (those things that look like a VW-sized version of a cockroach?) and cockroaches themselves, mosquitoes, garden slugs, potato beetles, stinkbugs, Japanese beetles and cabbage moths.
> 
> But I do really like most wasps: they eat aphids, flies, stem-borers and other little garden pests like that without being particularly aggressive towards people, nd some of them, like the blue mud wasp,  are really beautiful.  I usually just co-exist with some paper wasps who build in the eaves of my deck every summer if I don't notice them early on.  If I do see some scouting the deck then I might make a point of stepping out there often that day so they decide maybe someplace else would be more fun to hang out.  I shoo them away from the lids of my LPG tanks if I see them scouting that location too, so they don't end up startling my gas vendor...





Alli said:


> I finally gave up on the wasps since they door make delicious honey, and I always see them in my flowers. So they can stay. I love spiders, and we get really *BIG* ones here. Have you ever seen the big yellow banana spiders? My favorites. But I'm with you when it comes to cockroaches.




Agree re cockroaches.

A quarter of a century ago, I was awarded an EU traveling fellowship to Lithuania, where I was the guest of the English Language Dept of the University of Vilnius, where I spent several months, and while there, I rented a beautiful flat in the 19th century part of the Old Town of Vilnius, a place with parquet floors, high ceilings, modern art on the walls, and bookshelves that contained a vast array of books in five languages (only three of which I could make a stab at attempting to read.)

Anyway, the flat, which had its own electric coffee grinder, and its own gas boiler, - which meant permanent hot water despite fuel rationing - also attracted cockroaches.

When I mentioned this, my Lithuanian academic friends scoffed, by way of implausible explanation, in my opinion, with the argument: "The Russians brought the rats, and the cockroaches, and the swearwords, for there was no bad language in Lithuania before the Russians came."


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## Gutwrench

I‘ve got it in for wasps. That wasp would be in the trash along with a good chunk of someone’s ankle.


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## Eric

Gutwrench said:


> I‘ve got it in for wasps. That wasp would be in the trash along with a good chunk of someone’s ankle.



Any bee scares the shit out of me, I stopped my car in the middle of the street once and ran out screaming like a little girl after one flew into through my open window.


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## Gutwrench

ericgtr12 said:


> Any bee scares the shit out of me, I stopped my car in the middle of the street once and ran out screaming like a little girl after one flew into through my open window.




My step daughter is the same way. And don’t get me started on a mosquito  in the house. She must taste like chicken because all mosquitoes love her.


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## Alli

Gutwrench said:


> I‘ve got it in for wasps. That wasp would be in the trash along with a good chunk of someone’s ankle.





ericgtr12 said:


> Any bee scares the shit out of me, I stopped my car in the middle of the street once and ran out screaming like a little girl after one flew into through my open window.




Pollination and honey. We must put up with both wasps and bees for those reasons. If they are the cause for the beauty of flowers and the sweetness of honey (and yes, you can get wasp honey), then they’re worth living with.


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## Gutwrench

Alli said:


> Pollination and honey. We must put up with both wasps and bees for those reasons. If they are the cause for the beauty of flowers and the sweetness of honey (and yes, you can get wasp honey), then they’re worth living with.




I honestly didn’t know wasps produce honey. Surely it is poisonous.


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## Eric

Alli said:


> Pollination and honey. We must put up with both wasps and bees for those reasons. If they are the cause for the beauty of flowers and the sweetness of honey (and yes, you can get wasp honey), then they’re worth living with.



We have to spray wasp nests around our house, they're too aggressive when we go outside. But I'm always careful of regular bees, they're always harmless and gentle.


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## Alli

Gutwrench said:


> I honestly didn’t know wasps produce honey. Surely it is poisonous.




My daughter’s supervisor jars wasp honey as well as bee honey and has his own brand. One of the first things he did when she started working with him was to give her a jar of wasp honey, which she loved and finished too quickly.


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## Chew Toy McCoy




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## Alli

Chew Toy McCoy said:


>



He’s like a living bagpipe!


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