Last night our guest was a prehistoric creature that gave me pause about my tendency to walk around barefoot. Ordinarily not being one to kill, this time I was insistent that our visitor meet its maker. Dave had a different interpretation of the line between a creature’s right to live and a human’s right to safety and he tried to free this visitor from the confines of our house. This process left our Scorpiones friend seemingly close to death, offering little resistance to being prodded and pushed into a cup. Dave brought our uninvited guest’s limp body outside and left the cup tipped so he could walk out, if he was still alive. This morning, there was no body…

This past summer, we had a visitor who stayed for a few days and we spent at least one afternoon watching his antics on our rooftop. He was happy to pose for us and even went in for a close up. He or more likely she seemed happy to have us disturbing her rest for a day.

As a natural counter to the company of spiders and flies and (unfortunately) cockroaches, we welcomed the appearance of our very own cold-blooded insurance salesman. If in North America he has become a more civilized breed, driving a red convertible and cultivating his native Australian accent, here his is still living in his natural state of savage predator, happily (and thankfully) snacking on the insect plague of the order Blattodea.

Greek Integrated Pest Management: Thief Control

A few hundred pedals from my institute, farms are scattered in between factories and beach front mansions. Yesterday, I took my bike to spend some time in an olive grove. The poppies are starting to bloom, polka dotting the perfect green of the oxalis cover crop they use under the silvery olive trees and I wanted to bathe in this symphony of green and crash of red.

While wandering through the labyrinth plantation, I noticed a change in the colors; a deep almost coniferous mass of color off in the distance. As I neared the deepening green, the trees were beginning to take shape. Massive waxy leaves distinguished themselves among the slight and elegant olive trees and, much to my happiness, I realized these trees were dripping with avocados ready to be picked!

Without wasting time (and with the awareness that I was trespassing and soon to be a fruit thief) I scampered up a few trees and started collecting these fruits. On my way down the last tree I caught a faint sound of Greek blowing through the branches. Startled to find anyone around during the time of day that is usually reserved for siesta, I quickly found the ground and stopped to see if I could decipher their discussions.

The wind blew the voices in another direction, but I could clearly see four men, carrying rifles and pointing directly where I was standing! Panicking — and knowing the ‘wild west’ reputation of the Cretan locals — I emptied my bag of its haul and walked a few feet away from the evidence. Not knowing exactly how to handle the situation, I froze and stood waiting for the inevitable encounter. To my left, I watched two men, not noticing me, walk through with rifles poised. While I was concentrating on them, two other men came running directly to me, clapping wildly and yelling “cooo-coooo-coooolleeee-cooooo-cooooo”. Not sure if this was a war cry or yet another word of the unfamiliar Cretan dialect I decided to face the charging Cretans and turned in their direction, sweating under the possibility that I was soon to meet the barrel of a gun.

When one of them saw me, and greeted me with a glowing smile and violet eyes so characteristic of the locals here, I realized it wasn’t me they were hunting, but some wild fowl. After they passed, I walked back to my prize and re-collected my harvest, laughing at myself for worrying that anyone here would mind sharing a small amount of their bounty with me.