"Planet Earth" Happenings

So I had some very creepy happenings take place in my courtyard today.  There I am, just minding my own business, when this giant black wasp with blue wings and orangey-yellow antennas starts zooming around.  I go in for a better look when the thing lands near me and crawls in to a hole.  This wasp is actually digging a burrow.  Weird, right?  All I could think was "well this was much less creepy on Planet Earth."  I watched for a while.  After the wasp seemed to get the hole cleared out to its satisfaction, it went walking around.  Pretty soon, it found what it was looking for, a giant dead spider.  Now the pictures do not do it justice.  This spider was about twice the size of the wasp.  Well, after the wasp tracked down its kill, it dragged it back to the hole and took it right in.  Then it started doing what I can only assume was laying eggs.  It would vibrate and then put some dirt in, repeat.  Strange.  It did this until the spider was covered.  Well, with my extensive background in zoology (Plant Earth/Discovery channel) and later confirmation on google, I can tell you that the wasp had stung the spider, thus paralyzing it.  It then puts it in the burrow, and buries it with eggs.  Then when the little creepy wasp babies hatch, they have an instant meal.  This my friends, is the Digger Wasp.

First, the wasp dug a nice burrow.  Home, sweet, home.

The wasp dragging the spider into the burrow

Night, Night, spider

Lastly, the wasp layed eggs and filled in the hole

Critter Update

So this last weekend, I had a not so enjoyable Saturday adventure.  My school has been lucky enough to receive a much-needed Math/Physics teacher.  In preparing for this teacher, the students gave the house next to me a thorough scrub down.  While cleaning, I'm not sure what they poured down our pit latrine, but the cockroaches did not like it and being the scrappy little survivors they are, they decided to escape through the hole on my side of the outhouse.  P.S. Is there an equivalent word that doesn't make my toilet situation sound so pathetic...how about "exterior lavatory?" That sounds so much classier.  Anyway, when I got home from the market, I noticed that there was an unusual influx of cockroaches into my hallway.  When I opened my back door, they were everywhere: crawling the walls, in my shower, under buckets, being dragged kicking and screaming into holes by my giant ant friends.  When I opened the "exterior lavatory" door though, I hit the mother load.  The entire closet-sized room was carpeted with these disgusting little pests.  I promptly went to fetch my industrial strength bug spray.  I'm serious, this stuff knocks wasps from the air, singes the hair in my nostrils, and I would not be surprised will someday be linked to my imminent lung cancer.  Unfortunately, after about 2 seconds of spraying, the can ran dry and I had to resort to hand-to-hand, or in this case more like foot-to-head combat.  It must have been quite a sight, me hopping around a 3 by 4 room, crunching and squirting bug guts everywhere accompanied by my shrieks when I missed and the bug crawled over my foot.  Lets just say it was not pretty.  Luckily, the giant black ants were on my side, waging war against their yummy enemy.  This battle took me all morning, and I am still finding stray cockroaches days later, but in the end, I will prevail.  This is my house, bugs! 

In other critter news, I seem to have overcome my crippling fear of mice.  I had a mouse that was refusing to remove itself from my shower drainage hole.  I tried to flush it outside by poking at it with my broomstick, but this guy was not having it.  Instead of fleeing, like any normal mouse, this thing lunged back.  I went to get some students to help.  A boy stuck his machete in the hole and flushed it into the shower, while I swung at it with the stick.  Unfortunately, my stick-swinging aim needs work and I missed.  The mouse escaped into my yard and out through a hole.  I haven't seen him again though and my students got a good show of me running around trying to whack a mouse with a stick, so everyone went away happy.  Side note: I'm actually not so sure this thing was even a mouse...it looked more like a mole, but I wasn't able to snap a picture due to the fact I was too busy trying to kill whatever it was. 

I would also like to give a great big shout out to my grandma, Mum, and here Women's group at St. Thomas in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.  They donated enough pencils and pencil sharpeners for every single student at my school.  No more having to wait for about 60 plus students to share 5'ish pencils.  No more watching them hack at the nubs of pencils with a straight edge razor to crudely sharpen.  The students were so excited and I am so appreciative of their support!  Thank you so much!!