Confession #5: I’ve been sleeping with a Lady Bug…
I’ve bathed with insects so I suppose the next logical step would be to invite one to my bed. Okay, I suppose another explanation is due…
The lady bugs arrive each November on a sunny day and because there have been a multitude of sunny days this fall, they won’t stop appearing. I’ve been overwintering lady bugs on my screened in porch for several years now and because I sleep on my porch, I sometimes find one in bed with me. They don’t hog the blankets but I’m afraid of squashing one so after I found one on my pillow when I woke up in the morning, I do a bed check and make sure they have all positioned themselves elsewhere. Usually in clusters in the corners of the porch.
My Lady Bugs fly in by the dozens and if I’m home, I open my door so they don’t have to climb in through the screens and door jam. Sometimes a fly cruises in with the lady’s which is annoying but I do make some sacrifices since lady bugs make my garden a safer place for my flowers.
I’m pretty sure they choose my house because it’s lavender with fuchsia and periwinkle trim. I live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a set of written rules. We can all be decent human beings without them. A development one block away from my street has rules and one of those rules specifically mentions that you cannot paint your house purple.
I don’t understand. How does the color of someone else’s house negatively affect another person’s life and safety which is the reason rules were invented- to keep people safe? I like most colors, the bright ones in particular and the few I am not fond of (you know who you are)- I wouldn’t think to tell someone else what color they could paint their abode let alone make a rule about it.
But back to my friends…they cluster in the corners and do lady bug stuff which to me looks a lot like napping but like I said, they deserve to do whatever they want from all their hard work all summer. Sometimes one will leave the group and walk along the ceiling or the edge of the windowsill.
I find dried up lady bug bodies on the window ledge and at night I’ve heard a tiny bug body drop and hit the floor. I don’t know why some of the die because I haven’t investigated the life cycle of lady bugs. I could look information about them on the internet but I’d rather speculate than look to science and possible facts.
I think they come to my porch because they want to be surrounded by colors that remind them of the flowers they visited earlier in the year. They relax, some die and after winter, the live ones fly away.