I found a grasshopper sitting in the kitchen sink yesterday afternoon. My first impulse was to crush it in a paper towel, for most of my life I’ve killed bugs and insects when I found them in my home. But now I am married to Maria, the Pagan/Buddhist/Nurturer of Animals, and now I re-home moths and worms and snakes (not flies or mosquitoes).

So I trapped the green grasshopper in a tissue – he was beautiful and I loved his shade of green and carefully held it so I wouldn’t crush him and took him to the back door and opened it. Once outside, I released him – I never imagined myself as a re-homer of bugs – and he took off, healthy and eager to get back out into the world, he few in a strong zig-zag right out towards the barn.

Only at this point did I notice the gray hen heading out at a fast trot underneath him, tracking his floppy arc. “No,” I yelled,”keep going!”, but the green grasshopper did not hear me, he landed right near the pasture gate and the gray hen arrived seconds later, leaned over and gobbled him right up.

I felt badly, really, for this grasshopper. Saved only to be eaten and pecked to a quick death. What was the message? Leave nature alone? Better to kill bugs than free them? Animals don’t live in a no-kill world? Mind your own business? Maria asked me later if I had reached any conclusions and I said I had.

Next time, I’ll let the grasshopper out the front door.