October 2019, Donkz Acres

If you are not a Florida Native you may have screamed this as you stepped outside and as your foot hits the ground flying objects whirl up into the sky in front of you, you duck covering your face with your hands you may even feel them hitting you. You open your eyes and there is the alien looking up.

You have just met the eastern Lubber Grasshopper.

I just took my dog Poppy out for a walk and there were so many of these grasshoppers flying up and away from me and some flying into me it was not a very relaxing walk! My sister’s two pekin ducks are so funny trying to run after them very seldom catching one! They have brutalized my flowers eating stalks and leaves. I put some pest dust on one and it just fluttered its wings and kept on eating! Guess I missed the only time to get control over them which is when they 1st hatch looking like small black grasshoppers with an orange strip.

See How to kill Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers By Kimberly Sharpe at Hunker.com

I am a Si-Fi movie fan strange for a 73-year-old and have often wondered where the writer/producer came up with the “look” of the alien then I discovered that just maybe they used insects.

Have you ever lost something important and had no idea where it could be? I have, car keys phone, important papers however, when you walk out to the paddock and all the donkeys and a mustang are nowhere to be found. One or two have escaped but never ALL of them!

The phone rings and it is the County Animal people calling and asking if we were missing (at that time there were 6) donkeys and one white horse, they had us on their call list because they had helped round up some of our herd before. I said yes sounding both relieved and embarrassed, seems that they had received a call from a gentleman 3 miles from our place who reported that when he went out to get the paper there were 5 donkeys and a horse standing at his pasture gate looking like they wanted in so he let them in and they just started grazing like they belonged. I planned to pick them up later when I could find someone help me get them loaded in our trailer. Scary I thought about all the obstacles they had escaped during their journey, they had to cross 4 county roads with traffic and who knows what else and not one of them would tell us about their adventure!

Our vet microchipped each donkey as we added new members to the herd listing each one with the national database should someone find them; they could trace them back to us. Most animal owners with dogs and cats have them microchipped. Here in Florida with the hurricanes and other serious weather it is just important or maybe more so to have your horses and donkeys chipped

See Nancy Loving DVM posting on The State of Microchip use in Horses –
Thehorse.com/19431/the-state-of-the-microchip/

Aliens are Here!

Lost and Found: Where oh Where Have my Donkeys Gone?