Don't fear the beetle

I love that Caitlan isn't squeamish about critters. She's good friends with spiders, butterflies, pill bugs and probably many other multi-legged crawlers. Here's a beetle we found while camping. The person running away is Aunt Lisa, who is more typical in her avoidance of crawly things.

There is a really offensive (to me) ad for Orkin on the television these days. "Do you know ants wear their skeletons on the outside?" the Orkin man says. "EEWW!" say all the children. Clearly sending the message that exo-skeleton creatures are gross, and even children know this. So call the exterminator today, right now! Get rid of those gross exo-skeletoned animals, even the ones that aren't doing you a bit of harm!

On the other hand, there's a commercial from Capital One that shows how you can kill weeds by pouring boiling water on them. Take that, Monsanto!

Regarding "harmful" arthropods, my guru tells of staying in a retreat center in New Mexico and having his room infested with scorpions. He was careful to treat them as God's creatures, and leave them alone to do their business. Each day, more scorpions came to live in his room. The owners of the place were horrified, but is shows me that with sufficient peace in your heart, even scorpions can be your friends.