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There must be 50 ways to kill your lubbers

Tribune file photo

Sarah Kurzenberger of the Pinellas County Extension Service demonstrates the difference in size between young and mature lubber grasshoppers.

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By PENNY CARNATHAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 26, 2009

Dear Neighbors,

Please. Kill your lubbers.

I know they're yours because I already killed mine. Months ago. When they were teeny-tiny. I knew what they'd grow up to be, so I got 'er done.

You didn't, and now your Eastern lubber grasshoppers are the size of small dogs. Small herbivorous dogs completely encased in body armor. And they've discovered my yard. Which has led me to do things I never thought I would.

It's hard to kill small dogs encased in body armor. It's harder still if you're the kind of person who rights upside-down beetles and rescues lizards from cats. I wouldn't even kill a fly (unlike a certain president).

But it's us against the lubbers. No animal in its right mind eats them.

The other day, while snipping scaly branches off a jatropha, I came face to face with yet another lubber. (Your lubber, dear neighbor.) I reached out and snipped him in two with my garden shears. Just like that. Cold, very cold.

It was a first for me. It is not who I am.

But snipping is, at least, humane.

The next day, I came upon a lubber on a mammoth sunflower. Having no shears handy, I picked up two rocks and clapped them together. The cold spray of lubber guts on my neck was — ohmygosh. But even worse was looking down and seeing the poor crushed creature still trying to get up. The heavily armored do not go gently.

This isn't the soothing tranquility I seek in my garden. And I don't like what I'm becoming.

So please, beloved neighbors, kill your lubbers.

I'm not asking you to put a Cuban tree frog in a baggie in the freezer, or even to stop feeding the Muscovy ducks so they'll move away. Just the lubbers.

'Cause they're eating your garden, too.

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