On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 22:11:21 GMT, Anne Lurie wrote:

Kira, I know that you must be west of me, because I'm in NE
Raleigh.....but just how far west are you??? You're not in Roswell, New
Mexico, are you? 'Cause those bugs you describe sound pretty danged
alien to me!

Hee Hee. Site #51.
No, I am in deep woods between the Haw River and Jordan Lake, near Rt.
64.

Hmmm...... You inspected them with a magnifying glass? Brava, Brava!
Well, you got closer then I would have dared to!

Well, the chicken wire fence was between me and them, which gave me a
totally unrealistic sense of separation. To focus, I was about 6"
away. I checked a few hours later and they had recongregated on
their favorite tomato. But the translucent big pink one was not with
them. There was still one juvenile left, in its round rusty orange
phase. The back legs are like Bluto's arms.... big, swelled
"forearm", or in the case of the bugs, calf.
I really wish I had gone into entomology, or ecology, in those long
ago days of early education.
What an interesting world we live in, if only there weren't so many
#@%@%#$ people in it. 8:+)
Kira

You go, girl!


Anne Lurie
NE Raleigh
___________________

Kira Dirlik wrote:

I've lost the site on the squash bugs. Those rusty critters morphed
overnight into the grey/black/blueish longer bugs and developed a
middle section so the legs no longer come out of the same spot. They
may be squash bugs. They also developed a "shoulder" like the soldier
bugs' shield shaped body, but they are bigger and longer than those.
There was one larger one that was kind of a translucent pink! Could
this be a queen, or an albino? One of them appeared to be eating a
small caterpillar. As I inspected them with my magnifying glass, they
all scattered and went in all directions, out on their own... possibly
leaving the tomato and heading toward my butternut squash!
Well, the garden has just about had it now, anyway.
Kira