Eating Bugs

I thought it was a joke, but nope, it's not.  PBS is running numerous programs on why we should be eating bugs and worms to save the planet.  You can check it out here:  PBS - Why You Should Eat Bugs  I know that in the Bible, John the Baptist ate locusts and honey.  But I also know that at the Passover meal, Jesus and His disciples ate bread and wine and most probably lamb.  No insects or worms were on the menu.  Jesus fed the 5,000 by multiplying fishes, not bugs.  

Image Credit

If you want to eat bugs and worms, more power to you!  That'll mean more beef, chicken, pork, and seafood for me.  I'm not going to eat bugs and worms, no matter how many documentaries they run on it.  (Something tells me, the folks at PBS aren't chewing on mealworms in their breakroom.)  But, I'm all for freedom, I won't stand in your way if you want to eat that.

There's plenty of bugs being eaten at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, though - just not by us.  Check out some photos I took of some random bug eaters.  This guy right here.  A banana spider.  There are hundreds of these around the place.  We take sticks and twirl their webs around the stick and feed the spiders to the chickens.  They love 'em.

The banana spiders construct their webs overnight.  The webs are super strong.  If you aren't paying attention, you'll walk right through the web and it will stick to you.  That big ol spider will get in your hair and make you run around like a schoolchild!  They are just trying to catch bugs to eat.

Sometimes, they catch the friendlies.  Here is a dead honeybee that a banana spider got in her web.

The next bug eater, although I don't have a photo, is bats.  We have a bunch of them around here.  They come out right when the sun's going down.  Tricia was on the back patio the other afternoon watching them fly and eat mosquitoes.  More power to you, Mr. Bat.

As I was trimming the Confederate Jasmine the other day, I ran into this guy.  He's a pretty green lizard.  Check out what is sticking out of his mouth...

I zoomed in so you can get a better look.  This beautiful lizard was successful in catching a dragonfly!  That is the dragonfly's tail and the tips of its wings sticking out of the lizard's mouth!

The moral of the story is this:  I'm going to leave the bug-eating to the spiders, the bats, the lizards and the folks at PBS.  It'll be steak and rice and gravy for me.