I am trying my hand at growing stuff. I thought I should start small with something easy. I fell in love with mint tea in Amsterdam. Mint seemed a logical plant to start with. It is easy to grow, not too temperamental, and it grows fast. My landlord procured a tiny plant for me. My husband planted it in a big round pot that is about 10 inches high & 24 inches across. My mint plant took off. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that many of my mint plant's stalks were leafless and brown, and there were these strange looking dark things all around it & in it to. They looked slightly larger than the chocolate decorative sprinkles for cupcakes. "Strange," I thought to myself with crinkled brow. I thought maybe my little, OK, not so little now, plant was getting too much sun so I moved it further in on the porch, closer to the house, and I started watering it two times per week. The plant started to thrive again. I was still seeing the chocolate sprinkle things and began to wonder if we might have mice because those things looked exactly like mice poop. As I was watering one day there seemed to be a flourish of activity in my plant. Then I saw it, the most beautiful green grasshopper. 
EUREKA! Those chocolaty looking sprinkles were not mouse poop after all, but rather grasshopper poop! My mint leaves reduced to little pellets of poop! So, I comment to Bill, "I wonder if his grasshopper poops smell like mint?" I cannot bring myself to pick one up, smoosh it and smell it. I am curious but not quite that curious. Well, I cannot evict Mr. Grasshoppa as my husband suggests. A grasshopper has to eat too, doesn’t he? Well, Monday this week I come home from work and wiggle the stems of the mint plant. I love seeing the grasshopper there but I can never find him if he doesn't move. I catch his movement from the corner of my eye. It is not my beautiful grass green grasshopper I see. It is some behemoth. He is twice his normal size and brown green. I was panicked for a moment. Had some bully cricket come and scared my grasshopper away? A closer inspection shows that he is sitting above his old skin. It is only a 3rd of his size! How did he ever fit in there in the first place?
EUREKA! Those chocolaty looking sprinkles were not mouse poop after all, but rather grasshopper poop! My mint leaves reduced to little pellets of poop! So, I comment to Bill, "I wonder if his grasshopper poops smell like mint?" I cannot bring myself to pick one up, smoosh it and smell it. I am curious but not quite that curious. Well, I cannot evict Mr. Grasshoppa as my husband suggests. A grasshopper has to eat too, doesn’t he? Well, Monday this week I come home from work and wiggle the stems of the mint plant. I love seeing the grasshopper there but I can never find him if he doesn't move. I catch his movement from the corner of my eye. It is not my beautiful grass green grasshopper I see. It is some behemoth. He is twice his normal size and brown green. I was panicked for a moment. Had some bully cricket come and scared my grasshopper away? A closer inspection shows that he is sitting above his old skin. It is only a 3rd of his size! How did he ever fit in there in the first place?
