Nearly Spring and a cockroach

How could I resist writing again? This, I believe, is Courier.

Last night I went into the lighted kitchen to put something in the refrigerator. As I closed the door I saw a dark shape run out from under the fridge. Amazing! As long as we have been coming to Sun Rise Cove, about 8 years, we have never had any insects inside the condo.

This cockroach was approximately 2 inches long, maybe a little longer. Nothing like the "Palmetto Bugs" I have seen outdoors in years past when it was truly warm or running up the wall of the very fancy house belonging to a friend's brother and his wife in Baton Rogue where I was visiting some years ago. They were at least 4 inches long, possibly longer. Very shiny, brown, hard shells. They are the one insect that gives me the creeps, a little. I'm okay with most animals, birds, insects. I like snakes and turtles, etc. I'm not crazy about slugs, but they don't get in my way.

There is something about the way a Cockroach scurries across a surface that makes me want to leave the room or hope it will leave the room. The "Water Bugs" as some people like to call them. Another euphemism for Cockroach. Let's just call it what it is and get it over with. They are Cockroaches. They exist. They aren't something I want to co-exist with in close proximity, but live and let live.

I do not believe it killing something simply because that is the "easy" way to deal with it. It, whatever living being it is, has a right to exist and may want to live as much as I want to live.

This Cockroach ran about a foot away from the fridge, put it's head toward the Gulf side of the kitchen wall and froze. Unusual behavior for a cockroach, I thought. It stayed there. It didn't seek a dark spot to hide. This odd behavior gave me the opportunity to find a plastic container with a lid that I plan to use for water in the watercolor class. I up-ended the plastic container and tried to slide the lid under it and the cockroach, but as soon as I lifted the container the roach tried to make a break for it.

Nothing worse than having a cockroach headed right for you. I captured the medium-sized roach, by Florida standards,and went to Plan B. Somehow in its rush to escape it had turned itself upside down. There it was helpless with it's little legs in the air, it's belly exposed. It did not look as dangerous upside down.

I was able to find a newspaper to slide under the upside-down roach and the container. I carefully started for the door. The roach righted itself somehow and instead of trying to escape it froze on the newspaper. Good thing, because it could have quickly darted straight toward me, ran up my arm, under my sleeve. Yikes! But it didn't. I carried it's motionless, but perfectly alive, self outside and dumped it gently into the bushes. Gave it another chance at life, but not another chance at life in our condo.

I am not going to mention this to Monica in the Office. Before you know it she will send some person over to #115 with God- Only-Knows-what chemical to spray all around the kitchen, making it more dangerous in there than when the roach was there.

Somehow I associate roaches with dirt. Not dirt exactly. I think of them as running around in, most likely, dirty places, like under the fridge or in the kitchen drain or in a wall on under things. I don't want insects with legs and feet running into dirty areas and then running over surfaces where I might put food or run over food that I might eat. That's my beef with roaches. Otherwise are they any different than ants? An entomologist (did I spell that correctly? I can't find spell check on this blog) would be able to tell me the differences I'm sure.

Not that I'm all that crazy about having lots and lots of ants in the house. Who is? But there is no need to kill them. If a moth or a wood roach or a fly or a spider or anything is found in the house that really doesn't belong there why not escort them outside, gently. So, it takes a few minutes, some patience and more effort than swatting them. Why kill?

When the large, very large space creatures come to live around the corner and you happen to stumble into their house perhaps you'll understand. Can you put yourself in the position of the ant or fly or spider or roach that has stumbled into your house? I think you'd rather be escorted, gently, outside to take your chances in the cruel world of predator and prey,nature,than be dispatched with a fly swatter. Unless you have the urge to die violently,in which case, the fly swatter might be right up your alley.

Tomorrow we rise long before dawn. Yuck! However there are rewards for getting up that early, if I can only remember when the alarm goes off what they are. I doubt, seriously, I will wake up before the alarm the way I usually do, tomorrow. Too early. I won't have had enough sleep to want to wake up, so I'm setting the alarm and hoping it goes off or we will be off to a bad start.

The reason for getting up at 5:30 a.m., leaving the condo at 6:30 a.m. is: If we arrive at Babcock-Webb wildlife area or whatever it is called, before dawn and stand in front of the holes in the trees where the red-cockaded woodpeckers live we will be able to get a glimpse of them as they exit their night-time roosting spots to go out into the world seeking food and who knows what else. Also, the brown-headed nut hatch is better seen at dawn. Also in the vicinity is the Bachman's sparrow.

WE have seen the red-cockcaded woodpecker at this spot some years ago at dusk. The mosquitos were so intensely biting (I, of course refuse to wear anything resembling bug spray) I wondered if I could endure, but I did and the beautiful black and white birds with the odd little call flew into their holes and we saw them. We did not see the nuthatch as it is best seen in the a.m. I thought I heard the Bachman's sparrow, after listening to bird tapes on the drive over to this area I was pretty sure I was hearing it live, but the sparrow-like birds singing the song were some distance away. I never got a good look at them.

I don't keep a Life list so what difference does it make, you might ask, whether we see these birds or not. Why not go and look for a bird that can only be seen in a certain habitat that is not seen in New Jersey or Massachusetts?Keeps me off the streets.

It can be a challenge to identify birds. It can be magical to see a bird's plumage in good light or sometimes just the bird itself, especially if it is uncommon or quirky.

Gotta go. I need to pack, make sandwiches we can eat at Corkscrew Sanctuary while we watch Swallow-tail kites fly above us, if we are lucky.

A night at the Tiki Hut motel in Boynton Beach. Skip found it in a AAA book and another in Everglades City. Hopefully lots of sighting of Snail Kites along the way. Anything else will be a bonus. We'll be back, I hope, in time to watch The Marriage Ref on Thursday night. I want to see what goes on on this show. Anything Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, etc. is/are involved in might be interesting. I saw the first show, forgot to watch the second. I have no TV habits, other than The News Hour, SNL when I remember it and sometimes The Today Show. I really need to explore more, but isn't TV mostly a wasteland?

Before I studied Buddhism I saw and perhaps I had a bumper sticker on my car or was it my truck? Kill Your Television. I loved the idea, but it does seem a little too violent for me today. Maybe, Donate your TV to the Goodwill, would be a better bumper sticker for me these days. Really have to go now.FAN