Those who attended my mother's wake a couple years ago heard the story about her killing rattlesnakes in her veggie garden and hanging their dead carcasses on the fence, perhaps as a warning to others. I don't know why she hung them there or how long they stayed. I just knew that she killed them with a hoe and went on with her weeding, and that I was particularly glad at that moment in time not to be a rattlesnake. It's fun to romanticize Tillie as one of a dying breed, and she was. But honestly, there are women out there just as strong today in other ways. 

What makes me think of biting things is the less-lethal grasshopper that bit me yesterday at work. I can hear you now. "A biting grasshopper? Really?"

That's what my co-worker, Emily, said, when I told her. "Really? So THAT'S what I heard," she said, referring to my yell. (And how glad I am that I was yelling out of startlement and not because I needed help.)

We often catch grasshoppers in the butterfly garden with our bare hands because fast work is needed. These guys prey on other insects, like butterflies. They can jump 10 times their length if they are going vertical and 20 times their length if leaping laterally. A person who could do this could clear a five-story building, or bound the length of a football field in three jumps, according to an article on Time.com. So, we butterfly belles see a grasshopper and grab—whether we are wearing garden gloves or not. We might try to play tricks on each other—like handing it off—but we don't do that twice with any success.

Anyway, I was not wearing gloves and happened to see the offending insect outside the entrance to our climate-controlled chrysalis room. He was small, and I grabbed without thinking. And I likely will not do that again because the little guy bit me in the V of the hand between the thumb and index finger. It did not draw blood but it left a red mark and it hurt.

I am ashamed to say what happened next was not butterfly garden behavior at its finest. I yelled, flung him off, spotted him in the dirt and stepped on him. We are more Zen than this, usually. Much bigger hoppers than this one have sat quietly in my hand while I have carried them outside, to freedom. Had this one done the same, he would be alive today. In fact, a large one I caught later in a butterfly net and set free is probably hopping happily as I write this.

So, all your gardeners who did not know that grasshoppers bite—be forewarned. Wear gloves. And carry a big hoe, if it suits you.