Of Flora and the Freakish

It dawned on me today, that we have lived in our current
home for 6 years this week. This is a new record for us as
the longest we have staying in one house was 5 1/2 years
prior to this one.

And here is one of the main reasons why. (Okay, one of MY main reasons why, everyone else may have different reasons.):

We have not seen any, I repeat, ANY scorpions for the entire
six years of living here!

Probably the worst experience I have had upon living in Arizona has been the realization that scorpions live here, and actually get into your house, and actually sting and are hard to kill. We would see an occasional scorpion in our first Arizona house. We had heard smashing them could eject baby scorpions from the back of the mama. I don't know if this was true or an old wives tale but we were taking no chances. Our method of capture was packing tape, the clear tape you use to tape up boxes for moving or shipping. You stick that tape on the scorpion, fold it over and tape it on all sides. At that point, you smash it. Smashing is practically the only thing that rids them permanently. Apparently they are immune to pesticides.

So, when living in our other house, if you heard the sound of the ripping of packing tape, you had to wonder where the scorpion was found! They are perhaps the creepiest of all pests and literally kept me awake at night days after seeing one appear. When months went by without seeing one, we would fall into a pattern of false security, only to hear the rip of the tape again and once again not walk around the house barefoot.

That brings me back to this house, and the gratitude of never seeing one for six years. I hope we have at least another six years without them. In fact, if I never see one again I will be a very happy person! They are so creepy I cannot even bring myself to find a picture of one to post. for your enjoyment instead, I have posted some flora from the lovely islands of the Philippines!

But every cloud has a silver lining, and I have read that in Cuba, they are finding that some variety of scorpion venom is being tested for use in cancer patients with great results! Perhaps a day will come where I will not question the usefulness of such a creature upon this earth but will thank heaven above for the amazing things that scientists discover among some of the most skin-crawling things.