Rural Texas is a living NIGHTMARE - snakes and spiders! (neighborhood, scorpion)

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

I had not heard about that one but my guess is that, if the control wasp is an exotic, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as usual, has their heads stuck up their b_tt trying to stop the release. I really don't know anything about this issue but I'm sure it is (or was) a proposal of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. However, when it comes to the introduction of exotic insects as pest controls, the Fish and Wildlife Service is as predictable as taxes and death.

Figures, doesn't it?

Too bad we can't get rid of every single exotic insect/snake/snail/mammal/others and plant in Texas--and that includes tumbleweeds!

Funny how a Russian thistle invasive pest has become symbolic of the West!!

[TX75007]

First, spray around your house and foundation.

Then get some pesticide bombs. Put one in each room and three in attic, set them off, then leave for a long visit to relatives.

Air out your house when you return and enjoy the bug free existence.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Figures, doesn't it?

Too bad we can't get rid of every single exotic insect/snake/snail/mammal/others and plant in Texas--and that includes tumbleweeds!

Funny how a Russian thistle invasive pest has become symbolic of the West!!

Remember all the eucalyptus trees in the old western movies filmed in California? In fact there was a eucalyptus alongside the road in the movie scene of Grapes of Wrath when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), just out of the McAlester State Pen, meets up with his old friend near Joad's Sallisaw, Oklahoma home. That was definitely not Oklahoma in 1930.

Most ecologists who I have ever known unknowingly remove humans from the ecological scheme. I've always thought that man's construction of a ship or an airplane, the tools we use to transport food and that bring exotics to new shores, as similar to a bird that uses a stick to extract grubs from a rotten log. Ah, but that is a topic for the Science and Technology threads.

There are definitely some exotics we need to get rid of and Russian thistle, and fire ants, would be at the top of my list. However, if we got rid of all of the exotics in Texas, I wouldn't have my large shady Chinese elms out here around my farm house.

I guess even Native Americans were exotics in North America at one time or another and certainly my ca1696 immigrant families were. However, it is definitely more fun to be one of the exotics who can reason as to which other exotics should be removed. Lol!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

Remember all the eucalyptus trees in the old western movies filmed in California? In fact there was a eucalyptus alongside the road in the movie scene of Grapes of Wrath when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), just out of the McAlester State Pen, meets up with his old friend near Joad's Sallisaw, Oklahoma home. That was definitely not Oklahoma in 1930.

Most ecologists who I have ever known unknowingly remove humans from the ecological scheme. I've always thought that man's construction of a ship or an airplane, the tools we use to transport food and that bring exotics to new shores, as similar to a bird that uses a stick to extract grubs from a rotten log. Ah, but that is a topic for the Science and Technology threads.

There are definitely some exotics we need to get rid of and Russian thistle, and fire ants, would be at the top of my list. However, if we got rid of all of the exotics in Texas, I wouldn't have my large shady Chinese elms out here around my farm house.

I guess even Native Americans were exotics in North America at one time or another and certainly my ca1696 immigrant families were. However, it is definitely more fun to be one of the exotics who can reason as to which other exotics should be removed. Lol!

LOL! Interesting perspective!

My new landscaping will have mostly natives as far as I know now. But some exotics are well-adapted, though.
I remember the extreme cold snap in Feb 2011 (?) we had--my neighbor (Alamogordo) had all these exotics in his rock landscaping--saguaro and other cacti/plants that were not native.

I had all native to either NM or the Davis Mountains in my yard. I had minor frost damage on a couple of the agaves, but everything survived.

Everything in my neighbor's yard collapsed in a heap--everything. I've never seen anything like it, especially when the saguaro came down.

[Westerntraveler]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

LOL! Interesting perspective!

My new landscaping will have mostly natives as far as I know now. But some exotics are well-adapted, though.
I remember the extreme cold snap in Feb 2011 (?) we had--my neighbor (Alamogordo) had all these exotics in his rock landscaping--saguaro and other cacti/plants that were not native.

I had all native to either NM or the Davis Mountains in my yard. I had minor frost damage on a couple of the agaves, but everything survived.

Everything in my neighbor's yard collapsed in a heap--everything. I've never seen anything like it, especially when the saguaro came down.

yep those Saguaro are only in the Sonoran desert naturally.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by Westerntraveler

yep those Saguaro are only in the Sonoran desert naturally.

Southern AZ, specifically, usually around Tucson.

It was planted too close to the house, and just kept getting taller and taller--fell over on the house when it died after the hard cold.

Everything else in the yard was in dead heaps. They were lucky! The owners had just sold the house, and were leasing it until final closing, so they didn't have to clean up the mess, LOL!!

[Westerntraveler]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Southern AZ, specifically, usually around Tucson.

It was planted too close to the house, and just kept getting taller and taller--fell over on the house when it died after the hard cold.

Everything else in the yard was in dead heaps. They were lucky! The owners had just sold the house, and were leasing it until final closing, so they didn't have to clean up the mess, LOL!!

haha.also Northern Mexico and Cali have the Saguaros.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by Westerntraveler

haha.also Northern Mexico and Cali have the Saguaros.

California? That's a surprise!

[Westerntraveler]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

California? That's a surprise!

right, it surprised me too.

[124c41]

My wife has to have an explanation for everything, so she asked me once what purpose Love Bugs serve? I told her someone at A&M must have had a big financial investment in some car washes, and created them to boost business.