Hoppers and bikers

Ahh, August. Heat and motorcycles and grasshoppers.
I do not enjoy any of them, except in small amounts.
Every year for 70 years now, motorcyclists have congregated in and around Sturgis, SD for the Motorcycle rally. And I imagine most are good folks. But they come from different areas and they have different idea’s about most things. which is fine, in and of it’s self. But when you get 300,000 to 600,000 people congesting an area that normally only has from 10,00 to 60,000 people, that is a lot of extra guests!
Think about it; What if 500,00 cowboys, or ranchers showed up in your back yard and stayed to party for two weeks, every year, how would you like it or handle it? We who live here just try to suffer thru’ it.
Kind of like the grasshopper invasions we get every so often. This year is the big one. For grasshoppers anyway. They are every where. And they are eating and spitting and breeding. Kind of like the bikers!
And hoppers eat and eat and eat! It’s amazing the harm they can do in a short time. Lucky for us they peaked in a wet year. As it is, many are talking of getting 30% less of a hay crop so you can figure we are getting 30% loss in our grazing this year also. Grazing is what we make a living off from,. No grass, no cows, no paycheck.
Imagine if you took a 30% loss in your income? Go ahead, and figure it, I’ll wait. …………..Yeah, that is quite a bite, isn’t it?
A neighbor got stuck out in his summer pasture and after climbing a hill to get cell service, called his son to come pull him  out, but he and his wife had to set and wait for about 2 hours for said son to arrive and he;lp them out. The neighbor got to looking and soon noticed that every single blade or stem of grass had a hopper on it. Every one! So he started catching hoppers and looking under their wings to see if they had a mite under it, which is one of natures ways of eliminating or at least thinning the grasshopper herd. Any he found with a mite, he threw back onto the ground to pass this sickness on to his fellow grasshoppers. Any with out a mite? As he said it, “I killed every one of them sonsabitches!”
Oh well, this too shall pass. We will keep a stiff upper lip, do what we can to put up with them and help the natural flow to get rid of them. The hoppers too!