KALEIDOSCOPE

Bugs!  From the tiniest of the crawling critters, the sugar ant, to the creepiest of them, the cicada, bugs seemingly annoy my home.  Thank goodness that I only have to deal with the northern Midwestern size bugs and not those found in the southern states, and the poisonous ones make me grateful that ours just, for the most part, creep me out.

I am not, mind you, one of the women who cannot exterminate their own bugs.  I have not screamed at the sight of a spider; however, when they drop unexpectedly from the ceiling on a long silken thread, I might yelp in shock.  I would rather capture my bugs and set them free, most bugs not harming much of anything and being an important link in the food chain.

As bug control goes, I attack on two levels: Orkin sprays regularly and I have several Osage spheres on plates in my basement.

The Osage-orange, or “hedge apple”, is a curious fruit.  Spherical, when first picked, it resembles a hard green brain.  As the apple ages, it shrivels and turns a deep brown.  The tree itself is named after the Osage Indian tribe that lived near the trees, and for the orange smell the fruit gives off.  Although there is little scientific research to support the idea that the Osage will repel bugs, I still hold by the folklore that says they do.

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