beetles | wordsfromanneli

Folks! Dickie here. I wasn’t going to make a New Year’s resolution, but something happened to change my mind. I’m sorry to tell you we’ve got thieves in the woodshed. Well, at the very least, they’re freeloaders.

Here’s what happened. Flossie and Flora Flicker and their brother Floyd were checking out breakfast joints….

“I’ve been picking at the ground for those ant eggs and beetles, but they’ve all gone into hiding,” said Flossie.

“Give it up. I know a better place,” called Flora.

“What did you say?” Flossie shouted. “I had my head in the sand there for a minute. Didn’t hear what you said.”

“I said, Flossie, there are easier ways to get a meal around here. Your brother, Floyd has already gone to look. So, are you interested?”

“I know the sunflower seeds are stashed around here, in the woodpile,” Floyd mumbled. “I bet Rufus Towhee knows where they are, but he hasn’t been very helpful.”

“I was just about to tell Floyd about the sunflower seeds in the jar,” said Rufus, “but then he found this big ugly bug. I just had to turn my back. Can’t stand to watch him crunching away on it.”

“And now for dessert!”

“I do feel a little bit bad, eating Dickie’s sunflower seeds. He’ll be so disappointed when he sees they’re gone.”

“Oh deardeardear! They found my stash. And Floyd is bigger than I am. Did you see that spear of a beak on him? Well … lesson learned. My first New Year’s resolution – I’m going to have to start getting up earlier and get my share.”

The robin’s nest lies empty, and four little newly feathered babies are braving the unseasonably cold spring. The wind ruffles the baby featherlets. Drips of rain plaster the down onto their skinny pink bodies. What little body heat they had must be replenished quickly with food brought to them by their parents.

Junior #1 sits, wondering what to do.

Junior #2 sits a little more hidden, waiting for his mother to feed him.

Mother robin wonders where she should look for food for her brood. She also needs to find Junior #3 and #4.

I felt so sorry for them all that I went out into the miserable, cold wind, and dug up a few shovelfuls of dirt in my garden, knowing that it is infested with the grubs of the ten-lined beetles. I threw them onto the upturned lid of an old garbage can.

These grubs hide deep in the soil and wait for potatoes to grow so they can eat them before I try to harvest them.

Then, satiated, they wait for the first very hot day to come out of the ground and fly around as ten-lined beetles, again, as they do every year, looking for me so they can land on my back where I can’t reach them, and I have to run around the yard screaming until the Captain comes out to save me.