Hey Knit Wit.....I may have that smoked chicken thing beat.....my son just got a gecko for his birthday which eats LIVE crickets. I have to feed the crickets so they are fat and happy so I can feed them to the gecko, who in turn will be fat and happy. However, before I feed the gecko the crickets, I have to dust them with a calcium powder. Picture if you will...crickets in a large ziplock bag and powder. Zip is shut and SHAKE.... Did I mention that I am not fond of either crickets or geckos?

EM

PS....According to the weather channel, we are supposed to have snow here next friday.

Did I mention that I am not fond of either crickets or geckos?

This is your penance for allowing your son to get a pet that requires care of this sort. I am of course assuming that you had some input in the purchase of said gecko. If, however, it was all Electric's idea, tell him I said he needs to be the one sending the crickets to their grisly fate. :-)

On a related note my boys love it when they have an early appointment at their pediatrician's office. The doctor has geckos, iguanas and frogs of some sort in every exam room and, when you get there early, there's a chance you'll get to see a cricket die. LOL

Knit Wit

It was neither me or electric that said he could have it....it was MY MOTHER who also can't stand crickets (we all live together). Electric likes the little guy and someday I may hold him.

What is it with little boys and watching stuff like that? Hayden gets the biggest kick out of it also.

EM

Oh, heavens... Well, I guess you can't really tell your mom that she has to be the cricket executioner. Sorry about that.

You didn't even get veto rights???

Knit Wit

You didn't even get veto rights???

How can you tell a child ON HIS 8th BIRTHDAY that he can't have it. I mean...to have to look into those big blue eyes and if even a hint of a tear started to form.....Now don't get me wrong, no is my favorite word and I say it all the time, but he has been talking about this for 1 1/2 years and to pull the plug at the last minute would have killed us both. Oh, and mom also does some of the feedings so there is that...

EM

okay what do you feed the crickets???

gg

It's these orange looking cube things that are water, food and vitamins.

ooohh i was wondering since i haven't seen them eat before.....

gg

he has been talking about this for 1 1/2 years and to pull the plug at the last minute would have killed us both.

Oh, well, that's different. I thought it was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. I agree totally. If this is something that y'all had been planning for a while, then you gotta do it.

My kids would love a pet but I've got allergies to dogs and cats and my husband is resistant to most other animals plus I have bad memories of escape artist hamsters from my youth. The best we can do around here is fish. Unfortunately, you can't teach a fish to fetch. :-(

Knit Wit

What is it with little boys and watching stuff like that? Hayden gets the biggest kick out of it also.

Well, we had a Bearded Dragon a little while back and did the whole cricket feeding and dusting thing. Vincent enjoyed feeding him those crickets but I can say he doesn't get that from his DAD!!

I had a ton of ways to entertain myself on a farm growing up and a high percentage of it involved stuff like with with my brother:

We would dig up all the antlion larva we could find and throw them in the sand box. Then we would come back in an hour when then made all the pits and throw in ants. We'd watch the ants running through the mine field of pits until they hit one and got sucked to their death.

We would throw ants in spiderwebs and watch the spiders wrap them up.

We build "cricket racers" out of cardboard tubes, tape and saran wrap. Then we would catch a bunch and race them. The losers would then go out to the garden and be stuffed inside a rotting tomato. Then when they were fattened up we fed them to the cats.

We had tomato worm stomping contests. We'd each drop one on the side walk and stomp them to see who could send the guts flying the farthest.

I guess Ma should have let us watch more TV!

Why am I not surprised?

The closest I came to creating this amount of havoc and mayhem on the insect population was in the summer when the locusts came to town and my granddad would pay us a nickel per dead locust. That crunching sound is indelibly etched in my mind along with the way a flattened yellow and black locust looks after a kid's tennis shoe has whapped down on top of it.

Knit Wit

Ants in spider webs I can handle...fun to watch.
Frying ants with a magnifying glass....fun to do
Stomping tomato worms.....gross
Bearded dragon...I could deal with that

Aahhhh, the good old days...

We would dig up all the antlion larva we could find and throw them in the sand box. Then we would come back in an hour when then made all the pits and throw in ants. We'd watch the ants running through the mine field of pits until they hit one and got sucked to their death.

Ma should have let you watch a LOT more TV!

But did you make good money?

What is it with little boys and watching stuff like that? Hayden gets the biggest kick out of it also.

I don't know about little boys, but my 13 year old daughter has a leopard gecko that she loves (hence her trail name, Lizard Breath). We have found that we just put the calcium powder in the bowl for the mealworms (also live) and he will actually go and lick at the bowl! Our gecko seems to like the worms more than crickets in the wintertime.

Stomping tomato worms.....gross

And that's the only one that was actual useful and EXPECTED! We better not leave a live worm on a plant!!

Can't believe Knit Wit was PAID for that kind of entertainment with the locust!! Must have been a bunch of sissies in that household!

Wolf *waiting for someone to start flaming us for killing bugs*

This was Athens, GA, my friend, in the dog days of July and August. My granddad had a huge vegetable garden and wanted rid of those locusts.

Let's just say that I funded my ice cream habit and leave it at that. I prefer to bury my history as my granddad's "hired gun" in the dark recesses of my memory. LOL

These locusts BTW were huge. Four to five inches long at least.

Knit Wit

for that kind of entertainment with the locust!!

After Kill #20 it ceased being fun. It was a job. I remember once I went home with ten dollars for one day. You do the math...

The sad thing was that I ached from head to toe (I still remember it) and I and my six cousins were back the next day and the locusts were everywhere again. It was only every couple of years for a couple of weeks but it was like those movies. You'd chase them, they'd fly, they'd fly in your hair, you'd kill as many as you could and the next day you'd start all over again.

Hanging with those bugs wasn't fun.

Knit Wit

These locusts BTW were huge. Four to five inches long at least.

Must have been similar to the mouse stomping my grandmother tried to get my brother to do once (she never thought to ask me).

We didn't get pay for this stuff so we had to find a way to make it fun.

Believe me, this is the MILD stuff...

Can't believe Knit Wit was PAID for that kind of entertainment with the locust!! Must have been a bunch of sissies in that household!

ROFLMAO!

We did it to keep from gettin' a whoopin'!

After Kill #20 it ceased being fun. It was a job. I remember once I went home with ten dollars for one day. You do the math..

"ROUGHNECKS....... RICO'S ROUGHNECKS"

"Come on you Apes...... you wanna live forever ??"

Does anyone recognize which movie that's from ???
Surely, by the sounds of things.... should have starred our friend Knit Wit!

Well, I had to look it up.

Wouldn't want to star in it. I lived it!

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. LOL

Knit Wit

Knit Wit....
if you've never seen it.... it has what are tv commercials in it... with soldiers saying "Never too young to be a soldier".... and children were stomping bugs of all kinds.
THAT is what I thought of..... little Knit Wit earning her ice cream money.

Dina B.

If the insects in it look anything like locusts, I will never see it. I don't care if I never see one of those again in my life. The money was good but I would have rather hoed weeds... :-)

Knit wit

would have rather hoed weeds... :-)

NO WAY !!!
When I was a kid, my Mama had 3 large veggie gardens. When I was bad, my punishment was working in the garden......
not that I was a bad child or anything...... but I seem to recall spending a whole lot of time in those damn gardens !!! LOL

and as for hoeing..... I used to work with a lady, very sweet and proper.... a lot like myself.....
(!)...... She said one time "I used to hoe all the time.... every weekend... hoeing and hoeing and hoeing..... My Mother MADE me do it". It took her a while to figure out why I was laughing, and you should have seen her face. I STILL tease her about it.

Dina B.

I used to work with a lady, very sweet and proper.... a lot like myself.....

ROFLOL! Thanks Dina B, I needed a good chuckle today. Now just had to know we couldn't let that one slide by.

ROFLOL! Thanks Dina B, I needed a good chuckle today.

I knew y'all would get a chuckle out of that. It was just a question of who would regain composure fast enough to be first to comment.
Good thing Nanni isn't here... she'd have fallen all over herself to comment !! LOL

Don't make me laugh my back hurts I think I dislocated a rib on my right side doing the laundry...

LOL *OOOWWW*

Goofy girl Dana B

and stomp them to see who could send the guts flying the farthest.

This must be a side effect from watching too much "Little House on the Prairie"......... ;-))

I was way too weenie to squash bugs - still am. I dont' know that I could stand to have a pet that ate other live things - just too weenie. Foxy Boy is like me. Baby Fox would be catching the crickets and hand feeding them to the gecko....... Once when she was about 3, we saw a dead bird outside a restaurant - it had obviously flown into the huge window and broken it's neck and died. When we were in the restaurant, she asked if she could touch it on the way out. I said "sure" - hoping she would forget. She didn't. She just wanted to see what a bird felt like and wasn't squeamish at all about touching a dead one... The other day she brought some worms home in her pocket, so they could live on the farm - they weren't happy at the school playground, apparently.....

Foxy Boy, on the other hand, went into hysterics when he was about 5 because he figured out that the lobsters in the tank at the grocery were going to be eaten. He begged me to buy one "IT CAN LIVE IN THE BATHTUB" he shrieks, so the whole store and surrounding neighborhood can hear him. He was a vegetarian for a year after that.

My kids can be so odd.....

Mama Fox - the oddest one of the family ;-))

Knit Wit:

would have rather hoed weeds... :-)

Dina B:

NO WAY !!!
When I was a kid, my Mama had 3 large veggie gardens. When I was bad, my punishment was working in the garden......

Okay, I hate to say it but Dina B is the SANE one here!!!!!

I had to hoe this through a SWARM of Michigan mosquitoes!!! *shudder*

Yep, that my brother and me in that photo.