1867. The life of a grasshopper sucks

36 Replies

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Quite frankly the life of a grasshopper sucks. I’ve spend all summer hopping from dahlia flower to dahlia flower. I can eke out a living by sipping a bit of the scant amount of nectar in each bloom. Apparently that process helps with the fertilization of the seed head as well, but the lady who thinks she owns the garden keeps coming out of the house with secateurs and cutting the dead seed heads off. I feel redundant and useless.

And now look at me. Everything is dead and shrivelled up. There’s hardly a sip of anything left to survive on. I know I’ll die before winter is over, simply because of cold and starvation. Here’s a photo of me on a dead branch of Jerusalem artichoke.

As I said, it’s no fun being a grasshopper. There were three of us in this garden at the start of last summer and then there were two – just me and Mrs. Grasshopper. We had a clutch of eggs and out popped a multitude of offspring. One by one they seemed to disappear. There was a lot of competition for food, and sometimes I wondered if Mrs. Grasshopper wasn’t eating her own babies. But in the end I decided that was not the case. We’re not humans. We act responsibly. And then suddenly Mrs. Grasshopper herself disappeared.

The problem is our colour. We’re bright green and stick out like a sore thumb once the foliage dies off. Some insects change colour and survive, but we have not been blessed with that know-how. I suspect the local song thrush may have got Mrs. Grasshopper. That wretched thrush has been hanging around for months. It might be responsible for the missing children as well. There’s no warning. The thrush’s appetite seems to be voracious. It’s rapacious and vociferous. One minute you’re there looking for nectar and the next minute you’re

36 thoughts on “1867. The life of a grasshopper sucks”

  1. João-Maria

    This is humorous because us civilised folk of the Northern Hemisphere are now entering the insurmountably aureous (which is a word I just learnt of by trying to type it) crack of Summer.
    It must be a bummer to live to close to the bottom of the world. My greatest concern as a grasshopper would be to hop and just fall off.

    Liked by 4 people

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    1. Cloven Ruminant Post author

      Aureous is rather a good word. In the bottom or on the bottom – it’s all an aureous crack of Summer to me! My partner makes no distinction between “this” and “that”. I’ve got used to it.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. João-Maria

        Likely because he’s used to French, an actual language where pronouns can’t be determiners and adverbs and instead both this and that have the same form of as demonstrative adjective.
        Like, imagine people who aren’t English learning how to use the English subordinative. Imagine that experience.

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            1. Cloven Ruminant Post author

              !! You’re so lucky to live where life is not too far removed from multitudinous languages. Getting on a bus could be a learning experience without even realizing. Where I live it’s as mono as they come. There’s really no other language other than English and some people can;t even done that.

              Liked by 2 people

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              1. João-Maria

                Yes, indeed I am, but I never had money for those buses, though I’ve had some interesting trips through Europe once I started working at 17.
                My secret is that I’m a native in a Romantic language which gives me the essential structure to nearly all globally relevant languages and their derivations.

                Liked by 1 person

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                1. Cloven Ruminant Post author

                  Yes! I understand the Romantic Languages aspect. One of the things that helped ruin English was when the linguists started put Romantic categories onto it – it should fit into the Latin mold; declensions, subject and object and verb etc etc, And what a shame it was when it lost the eth!!

                  Liked by 1 person

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  5. umashankar

    This is another top class story, this autobiography of the grasshopper. The end is dramatic and abrupt —which is not without a whiff of humour— but you have subtly readied the reader for the inevitable. The grasshopper turns out to be a philosophical protagonist, reminds one of both Othello and Hamlet.

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. badfinger20 (Max)

    The grasshoppers need to organize a revolt with anarchy in the garden… devour the Thrush and turn mother nature upside down.

    Liked by 1 person

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  9. judyrutrider

    My cats keep trying to make pets of our grasshoppers, bringing them into the house where the dogs promptly dismember them. They are so large I’m squeamish about putting them out of their misery…and now I’ll have to consider their family as well ~sigh~

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