I am patrolling the outside of my house vacuuming grasshoppers.  I know this sounds inane, but this is my organic method of grasshopper control. 

These are not the regular brown grasshoppers that love tall, dry grass. These are Post Oak grasshoppers and they only live (and dine) on post oak trees.

These interlopers showed up recently in Texas. They aren’t natives (who among us is anyway?) but transplants enjoying the bounty that Texas has to offer. They are a colorful grasshopper, bright green with red stripes. 

A bug enthusiast friend of mine called them pretty. I love nature, but it’s difficult for me to get to a place where I can call a grasshopper pretty! 

They arrive in spring and for reasons only understood in the grasshopper brain, they like to climb the walls of the house.  Our white Austin stone house is covered with hundreds of grasshoppers for about three months.

Solutions for the intolerable

At first, I tolerated their presence.  This is nature’s home after all, I am just a visitor. Soon it was difficult to go in and out of the house without being assaulted. This was getting very annoying and intolerable.  

I had to find a solution.  I didn’t think a round of diatomaceous earth around the base of the house would be effective since they are grass-HOPPERS.  They would easily avoid the dust.

I certainly didn’t want to spray the house with neurotoxins because unless you doused each bug in the chemical spray, you would not kill them because they are not eating the house, just climbing it.  That would be a double win for the grasshoppers – they would survive, and my home, family and pets would all be poisoned!

The chickens did their part, but the girls were far outnumbered by the legions of grasshoppers and soon grew weary of the all grasshopper diet.

In May of that year, we were having a college graduation brunch for my daughter. I love having a party, but only outdoor ones! I need my guests to be able to mingle outdoors while they lavish praise on my gardens. The unpleasant shower of grasshoppers as you exit the kitchen would surely send the quiche and mimosas flying!

I had reached the peak of my tolerance level.  

The Dustbuster as an organic insect control

And that is when I got the idea to vacuum.  

I went to Walmart and bought a Dustbuster.  I immediately charged it up and went to work vacuuming the little critters.  Some of them were too fast for me and lived to see another day, but I got most of them vacuumed and then took them to the chickens and released them. 

Again, some managed to escape in this process, but many didn’t. For the week before the party, I made my rounds of the exterior of the house and vacuumed every hopper I could find.  I repeated the rounds three times a day!

In the beginning, I couldn’t get around the house once on a single charge. So many grasshoppers! After a round of vacuuming, the house would stay somewhat grasshopper free for a few hours. 

 Long enough for a beautiful graduation party! 

The chickens were happy, I was happy.  

Win, win!  

Well, the grasshoppers were not happy. 

This has become my preferred method of organic Post Oak Grasshopper control.  The Dustbuster costs about $40. I figure for a 100% organic control I don’t care if I need to buy a new one every year.  But it has lasted several years. It’s also good for cucumber beetles that love my roses and vegetable garden pests.

Pain tolerance: Natural and unnatural approaches

But this is not a post about the organic control of pests, but a post about pain tolerance. 

 I am tolerant of bugs and other critters.  I used to dislike snakes and spiders but now consider them to be an important part of my volunteer staff and they never complain about being on bug and mice patrol 24 hours a day.

So, when I had my grasshopper problem, it was with some trepidation that I decided they had to be killed.  I justified it because they are interlopers and because they were completing the circle of life as food for the chickens. 

But was the massacre of these “beautiful” grasshoppers necessary?  Or had I just maxed out my tolerance level?

If I hadn’t come up with the vacuum idea, would I have resorted to chemicals to rid myself of my problem at least for the party?  I might have. The pain of dealing with these grasshoppers was just too much to bear under the circumstances.

Give your body a fighting chance

And that is where I am in dealing with chronic pain.  

I don’t like modern medications.  I don’t like things that mask symptoms instead of dealing with the foundation of the problem.  

Prevention is the best first line of defense, but that ship has sailed for most of us. 

Gentler, natural solutions are second to prevention.

But sometimes you don’t know what your solution is and all you do know is you are in pain.  Too much pain.  

Pain that you cannot tolerate anymore.

Try to prevent pain first.

Try to use nature to heal itself.  

But if you’ve reached your tolerance level allow yourself to give in to the harsher modern chemicals and live with the side effects in order to give your body a fighting chance.

One good night’s sleep goes a long way toward letting your body begin to heal itself. Wake up ready to start again on the path to finding the natural solutions that work for you.

And keep your vacuum charged because you never know how it might prove useful.