Bug Squad

So, here I am, an Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) perched on a rose bush in Vacaville, Calif., as dawn breaks. I'm eating aphids and minding my own beetle business, which consists of gobbling aphids and more aphids. And more aphids. Did I say more aphids? More aphids.

It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. It's also a 'cat-eat-'cat world, that is, when a caterpillar eats another caterpillar. Or in this case, when larva eats larva. We recently spotted this lady beetle larva eating a syrphid fly larva on our yellow rose bush, "Sparkle and Shine.

This is an insect that looks as if it were assembled by a dysfunctional committee: long angular legs, long antennae, and beady eyes on a thin green body. All hail the katydid. It's usually camouflaged, disguised as a leaf in the vegetation--Nature's gift. But in our pollinator garden, we see them.

From horrible to bad. That's the consensus of the declining honey bee population in the United States.

There's an old saying applicable to child-rearing: "First you give them roots, and then you give them wings." Roots. Wings. Roots to ground them, to love them unconditionally. And wings for them to lift off and launch new beginnings.