Despite 90-degree weather here this week, autumn is making itself known in a number of ways: foggy mornings, colorful leaves, and the invasion of the stinkbugs.
I know others have been experiencing this invasive species for years, but they're fairly new in our area. They're ugly and annoying but harmless--they're just looking for a warm place to hunker down for the winter, so they find the cracks around doors and windows and crawl in, and then they spend the evening banging at the big front window. They like the south side of the house, so they gather in a few predictable places, where they're easy to catch and relocate (outside).
They would be easy to smash, too, but you don't want to do that unless you want to learn first-hand why they're called stinkbugs. A colleague of mine reports that her dog eats stinkbugs but the process of digestion does not eliminate the stink.
Last year we ejected a few from our house and the year before, even fewer; this year, though, we got after three or four every evening. And when I say "we," I refer, of course, to my husband, the resident remover of alien life forms. It's not that I'm afraid of bugs in the house, but I wouldn't want to deprive him of the thrill of the chase.
His intrepid efforts this week ought to earn him a stinkbug trophy, but if I doubt that a taxidermist would be willing to tackle the project.
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