By By: Ellaine Kryss Hubilla
Insects can be annoying garden pests. They pester your plants before you can even benefit from them. Jessica Ellis, a film director from Los Angeles, shared in a series of tweets, her first-hand experience with the destructive impact of pill bugs in her garden But to her surprise, there was more in her backyard garden than what she had been expecting.
Screenshot of Jessica Ellis thread about a mystery in her garden.
“So. We had a massive infestation of pill bugs who ate our zucchini twice. So we put out beer traps (they go to drink the beer, they fall in.) Then a mystery occurred….” Ellis tweeted.
According to her, they’ve put traps in their veggie beds and it did a great job catching “zillions” of pill bugs. But the mystery began when the traps started to move.
“We would put them out during the day, fine. Go to bed, fine. In the morning—” Ellis did not continue her words, instead, she added a photo where she initially placed the traps. However, they weren’t there the next day.
Screenshot of Ellis’ thread about the traps she placed on the vegetable bed, however, the traps started to move from one place to another.
Ellis added another tweet to the thread: “Alright. So something was happening to the cups. They were disappearing. But to where?” she said, posting a wide shot of her backyard.
Then she added another photo that shows where she eventually found the traps: they were now placed on the top of where she grew blueberries.
Ellis uploaded a photo where the traps went when it allegedly moved from where it was originally placed.
She concluded that maybe it was the wind that brought the traps there: “Well, it had been extremely windy the night before, and blowing East. Debris all over the yard. Maybe just the wind blew it into the blueberry bush, knocking out all the bugs and beer??” she said, trying to convince herself that the mystery was plainly caused by extreme wind.
However, it wasn’t windy the night before…and yet, the traps were found in a place where they weren’t originally placed in.
Finally, Ellis came to the conclusion that something was intentionally “removing all of the bugs, all of the beer, and burying the cups amongst my prized blueberries,” and she already has a suspect.
Jessica convincing herself that it was the wind that brought the traps in blueberry bushes.
Before Ellis goes into details of who or whatever it is that’s lurking around her garden, she added a few more tweets: “Now you never know who is using your garden when you leave it. In the house I grew up in, which backed a creek, we had a myriad of nocturnal visitors, from a river otter and opossums by the dozen to an unfortunate snake whose HEAD we found on the deck one morning.” and “But in LA, we’ve never really seen much in the yard beyond birds and a snail or two. 8 foot high fences and we’re enclosed on the property. Whatever was getting in, it was rather sneaky.”
Ellis explaining the possibilities who could be sneaking in her backyard.
“And then last night…” Jessica Ellis finally found that they were not alone, as she posts a short video of an alligator lizard.
“This Snakey looking fellow is an alligator lizard, who seems to be living in our tomatoes. And apparently, every night this week, has been feasting on drunken pill bugs, washing it down with Coors, and dragging the cups into the blueberries for dessert,” she explained in her tweet, completely aware now of what has been happening in her backyard.
Video and photo of the alligator lizard that Ellis caught in her backyard.
Ellis ‘adopted’ the alligator lizard and named it Graham. She also concluded that the pill bugs’ feast will soon be over. She jokingly said in the tweet “but it just goes to show you never know who will show up when you put out beer. And also we got a drunk lizard to deal with.”
At the end of the thread, Ellis jokingly responded to people who are asking her to let Graham drink alcohol. The tweet said: “A LOT of you are advocating for enabling Graham’s alcohol habits and I need you to take a look at your lives. I don’t even know if he’s 21. Or a COP,” she said.
All photos were taken from @baddestmamajama Twitter account.
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