And by “man” I mean grasshopper. While grasshoppers often play magically hillarious smart asses with tophats in cartoons, in the garden, they are anything but magically hillarious. They will sit in one place for a week at a time until everything around them has been eaten; the insect equivalent of fat guy in supermarket, eating his way out. 

For a few weeks I noticed something was eating tiny, horrible bites out of every other leaf in my garden, so I spent the following hour and a half searching, obsessively, every leaf top, every leaf bottom. Then I found him! And then I lost him. The I found him! I swear if you look away from this picture for a half a second, he will disappear.

I literally had his green dust on my fingertips and nothing more. When I spotted him again, I got nice n close. Steady now… Snap! Mr. Miyagi grab. 

A slight pang of guilt ran through me; one of his tentacles was still wiggling despite his fully visible guts. I put him down to finish the job and his mangled body sprung into action, grotesquely zipping around despite a completely crushed body. One more clap of the gorilla gloves and it was over. The lil’ bastard will be remembered for his dexterity. 

But the cycle of life continues; Panthy’s Garden is still a romantic place for some insects.