They flock to building walls that are warm in the autumn sun.
They ride indoors on my clothes, in my hair. They’re looking to settle in somewhere for winter. They’re already getting lethargic, like the houseflies caught between your windows.
Generally, I like ladybugs. They’re good for gardens. But this time of year, they’re a nuisance as they try to migrate indoors.
I try to catch them in cups and release them to back into the world where they belong. They say it’s bad luck to kill a ladybug, even when they’re taking over your farmhouse.
I don’t need any more bad luck.
Your house in on fire and your children are gone,
All except one and that’s little Ann,
For she crept under the frying pan.
[Oh damn! I just accidentally killed one while trying to get it to crawl into a spoon. So much for luck.]
As usual when this subject comes up, I must ask my never-answered question: what do we call a male ladybug?
Killing a ladybug is bad luck–that’s from the abridged version of the Bad Luck Bible. The fulltext version says that bad luck for killing a ladybug by mistake can be averted by eating bread and jam while singing the ladybug song.
Believe it or not, you call a male ladybug and male ladybug.
And, hah, Betsy — you forgot the bottle of beer (or three) that has to accompany the singing.
Does that make him bisexual or gay???
So we moved into a small bungalow in the late winter… February of 1997… cold but no snow; the fates were good to us. Every window of that little house was filled with LADYBUGS. This will be the hardest time of all, the living in the same house part of it. Get help. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. There are services you can contact through the office for the aging or something like that. You will find it.
Hi Elaine! Finally dropped by again after a long time, and glad to see you are still doing your thing! About those ladybugs…you know where you live now is close to where I grew up (and where much of my family lives) and in recent years the ladybugs have been a peril. I learned that these are not the same ladybugs we all know and love, that were great for our gardens! They are an invasive species – they bite, and they stink! G.