| Plants and creatures. |
[Sep. 6th, 2009|04:09 pm]
J
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| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
Stuff about plants, creatures, and less-important moral dilemmas under the cut.
Back in March or so, when we had the Chris-warming, Jo bought along a lovely little jalapeno plant. We have adopted it and regularly sing to it, and it's been generally having a fantastic time with us and giving us lots of very burny presents (my eyes can also vouch for this, but that's another story).
Barry, (the jalapeno plant) has been looking quite sad lately. For the past week or two, it's leaves have been drooping. If it were to express the emotions it may or may not have, it would be lethargic and grumpy. It's just not happy at all.
The other day, upon closer inspection, I noticed Barry's leaves had holes in in seemingly random places, but were also disintegrating at the edges of some of them, like a singed piece of paper. This was when I noticed upon even further inspection (as in, face barely an inch from odd-looking areas) that there is some kind of minuscule creatures living on Barry.
It's fascinating. At first I thought they were aphids, but they're actually even smaller, not on any of my other plants, and the most interesting part; are slowing forming a web. A fucking web. On Barry. It's only a tiny web at the moment, but it's going to get bigger. I'd say they were some kind of batshit type of spider, but they don't have that kind of behavior. Plus, I can't actually see the amount of legs they have - they are too little.
These little bastards are the cause of Barry's misery, but they are amazing. I've never seem them before. I was going to bed last night, and before I did, I checked to see what they were up to. They were all perfectly still.
This morning I woke up, checked on them again, and they were doing they same thing they do everyday (try to take over the plant). They sleep at the same time as me! And *each other*. There are hundreds. Barry is getting more holes and webs spun around him by the day, but I don't actually want to kill them.
I don't want them to kill Barry, but I don't want to kill them either. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be one or the other, and I'm not even sure how to kill LB yet. If they are similar to aphids, then very diluted soap sprayed on will do it. But what if I let them live?
Barry could look like a Christmas tree by.. well, at the rate they're going, Christmas.
I suppose it's nice to have these things to think about from time to time to distract myself from the more pressing issues in life.
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