Spiders and snakes are no problem for me – but mole crickets – they give me the heeby jeebies.
Guess it's just the hapless way they blunder into you without a second thought. And not being the kind of person to deliberately kill anything, (with the possible exception of mosquitoes and other small insects that actually bite me) mole crickets get quite irksome, being highly persistent and mighty hard to dodge when they want to be exactly where you are - at exactly the same time.

Thankfully we don't see too many around these parts, but strangely enough, in all probability one saved my hibiscus, together with a couple of prized geraniums and a nice bougainvillea.

Bleach is not something that tends to get sloshed around willy nilly at our place. My next door neighbour uses it to kill weeds in his driveway – but we hesitate to use it, even in the laundry.

Anyhow, with a build-up of yucky looking algae at the bottom of my watering can – algae that had grown so thick that it was beginning to bubble up, loosen and threatened to block the rose – the best solution seemed to be the application of a drop of bleach. To be honest a bit more than a drop was left to soak in the can and work on the algae overnight.

By the morning, the bleach had done the trick, in fact it had done it so well that there wasn't a trace of green left at all, it just looked like water in the bottom, except for the presence of a mole cricket.

Having once drowned myself, the sight of even an ant struggling on the water surface invokes a rescue response – so even though mole crickets are among my least favourite critters the sight of one in the can prompted a rescue attempt during which it soon became apparent that it was too late to save it.

Pondering the reason for its death reminded me that it had landed in bleach not water. So inadvertently (or maybe not) the mole cricket had saved some of my favourite pot plants from being watered with bleach – which may well have reduced them to the same state as the weeds in next door's driveway.

So thank you poor mole cricket for the supreme sacrifice involved. In future my attitude towards all mole crickets will be a fair bit more kindly than it has been in the past - and the method used to clean watering cans a little more thoughtful.

Is there a moral to the story? Not one that comes readily to mind – maybe it's that help can come in the most unexpected ways. (or if you read a load of waffle you'll be left wondering why)

Thank you for reading. Blessings - O