Grasshoppers

I am not going to call the immediate area around my house “my yard.”   It’s not a yard in any normal sense.  And, in spite of what a few of my friends say, my yard is not filled with weeds.

My yard is native xeriscape.  I have attempted to emulate (if not fully join with) the landscape surrounding.

Sure, I have a couple fancy purple flowers near the deck.  I have a linden tree in front.  But the rest is unirrigated blue grama grass, needle and thread, native gayfeather, sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and juniper.

This year, the surround is also, as my father used to say, “lousy” with grasshoppers.

Zillions of hoppers.

I give you that grasshoppers are interesting in a general sense because their ears on their bellies.  I mean, try to imagine what someone you know would look like if their ears were on their belly.  Maybe your favorite actor.

Weird.

Red-winged grasshoppers are cool because, well, their wings are red.  And I even somewhat admire the jazzy kind of hopper that clicks as if flies.

At this point, however, I am overrun.  Grasshoppers cling to the side my house, hunch on the planks of my deck, fly in and tumble across my concrete drive.  If I dare walk in the now dry grass, a dozen hopper will launch out ahead of me with each step—as if at each footfall I am tripping catapults.

One remarkable aspect of the heavy grasshopper population is how the bluebirds have reacted.  For the past week, twenty to thirty bluebirds have gathered around my house all at once early in the mornings, to gorge on the hoppers.

The bluebirds, hover above the grass, drop to the ground, flourish, pirouette in midair, perch on my rain gutters, and fling themselves at the hoppers at every opportunity.

I have taken to sitting outside with my coffee to watch the bluebirds.

Nature at work.

Coffee.       

—Mitchell Hegman