they are soooo....

nasty. I have been chasing and stomping those gigantic black grasshoppers. When they hop, I do too, to try to get a shoe down on them before they jump again.   These are not the multicolored ones people call Georgia Thumpers, but a greatly enlarged version the ones that are completely black, except for a yellow line down the back. I was busily stomping on the little version back in the spring, when they were half an inch long, newly hatched.  But obviously did not even begin to get them all, as they have matured into something that is gruesome, especially when I do get a good stomp going and that stuff oozes out.   

I know I have smushed at least a dozen today, and expect there are that many more leisurely chomping away on my landscaping, if I would stay out there waiting for them to surface. There are corpses all over the yard.  So icky nothing, birds, what-have-you, is interested in eating the remains.

And several from a week ago right by the boxwood planted near the driveway: it looks like they just dessicate and pretty much remain intact. Some were even in the act of reproducing, so I am really glad I got those two lovebirds, to keep them from making more for next summer's stomp fest.