Dead Bugs

Here in Kentucky, this is a year for cicadas. Sometimes they are called locusts as well. Anyway, one day last week I spotted an Orkin truck on our street, and the next day the sidewalks were littered with dead bugs. Dead crunchy bugs.

But here's my thought, why do we have to kill these things? If they have a natural life cycle of between every 13-14 years (or 7-8 depending on the bug) why don't we just let it run its course. I'm wondering if they serve some useful purpose and we're messing with an eco-system occurance that will come back to bite us in the butt. Though, I've read that they can do a lot of damage, eating up tress and other plant life, so I guess that's why we feel the need to off them.

What does the in-house environmentalist say? (Alex P, that's you.)

On a sidebar note, our family has lived with lots of different bugs over the years. Here are just some of the few we tried to eradicate over the years:

Texas - fire ants (MacKenzie had a harrowing encounter with these!)

Georgia - palmetto bugs, which is just a nice way of saying huge wood roaches, which our Golden Retriever would chase, and if we were lucky, catch and take outdoors. These bugs literally covered the sidewalks at night and would go scurrying underfoot as you walked, totally creeping you out!

Korea - spider like creatures (I'm not sure of the technical name for this hideous thing) and centipedes

We had fleas in our backyard one time in Texas and because we had Katie, our Golden Retriever, I thought to use some heavy duty powder on the yard. After spreading the powder I broke out in welts and was having a hard time breathing, so I was rushed to the emergency room and given a shot of epinephren . Just goes to show you that the bugs usually win!