One by one, hoorah, hoorah!

It was April, and though the snow had left the ground, we still had fires burning each day to keep the chill from the air. As the temperatures steadily increased, we began to feel the stir of excitement for spring. For less trips outside to get wood from the stack; for days without sweatshirts and boots. And it was on the way.

But as the cool weather gave way to the warmth, another unexpected, and unwelcome guest came with it. Small. Unassuming. Daunting.

A tiny ladybug.

Scratch that. We could have dealt with one ladybug. As a child I remember being told that if you could get a ladybug to land on you, it would bring good luck. Sitting in my backyard, I still remember the day I sat for so long that I started to blow on my tiny goodluck charm - willing it away even if it DID bring good luck. A ten year old just simply cannot sit still forever. No...one bitty bug would have actually been kind of cute. But this bug had friends. Many hundreds of friends.

All at once, it seemed, they woke from their winter slumber and flew in great numbers to the warm walls of our house. Walking up and down the walls, around windows, in and out of outlets. They flew onto light fixtures and walked the rim of teacups. They. Were. Everywhere. Ryan, crawling age, was delighted at his new moving toys. We vacuumed and cleaned and dusted. We asked them politely to leave and when that didn't work, threatened to turn them into little art collages in place of the macaroni. When they called our bluff we threw tiny tantrums and begged them to go.But still they stayed.

During this same week, we were busy preparing for guests - four of our friends from Washington were coming and we wanted to give them rest, a respite from their jobs and the fast paced lives they lead. So, we were fixing up the bedrooms upstairs. Painting...caulking...taking up carpet. (Our new mantra, it seemed.)

And one week after the barrage of insects had started, our friends arrived. I can look back now and laugh, but what a shock it must have been to arrive to a house full of ladybeetles! (Iowa? Ohm, it was...buggy.) Not being the kind of people to relax (even when you tell them to), soon after they settled in, they each took on some household task. Michael armed himself with the vacuum- insect hunting. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that he spent hours rounding up the pests- keeping count. Over 800 in one day. He would clear a room, and come back twenty minutes later only to begin again. (He's an engineer, an analytical type. That's the only explanation I can give for his methodical counting.)

Thankfully, despite the bugs we were able to really enjoy our time together. We had the vacuuming routine, and as the numbers marched in, we marched them back out.

The day before they went home, we went to town to run some errands. While at the hardware store, the guys happened to find an insect killer that was house safe.(Why we did not do this sooner, I do not know.) Arriving home tired from our shopping trip, we all sat down to rest. Phil took the spray upstairs to the worst (and thankfully unoccupied) room bug hotel to test it out. Ten minutes later, he flew down the stairs "Hey! Come look at this!"

We all ran up the stairs to a room where hundreds of ladybugs lay dead on the floor. Tifani laughed "YES! The wicked witch is dead!" Tycen grabbed the bottle and ran to all the windows, spritzing the corners. We were all relieved to put a stop to the crawling intruders.

But a funny thing happened. Two days after they left, there were no more ladybugs to be seen. None dead on the floor. None crawling on the ceiling. We joked that maybe it had been a plague... an odd phenomenon at the least.

And the last four months have been delightfully ladybug-free.

Last week we had a cold snap - temperatures dropped down to the fifties in the daytime. I saw my first ladybug in four months crawling in that nice, warm front room on the wall next to the window. A chill ran up my spine. I searched tentatively for more, and sure enough, his friends were right behind him- lemming style. They had been in the fields, and were now looking for a good place to winter. It had not been a plague, merely a routine.

And though we have visitors on the horizon (just days away) I am not worried. We have preventive ammunition this time. We bought the gallon-sized version of our magic potion and sprayed nearly the entire outside of the house. Now, we watch them fly up to the house, scurry around to find a nice, dark crevice to crawl through and BAM! The deflector shield (reminiscent of star trek) takes them down! (I am excited about my bug spray.)

No, my small friend, you won't winter here this year. I don't care if you bring good luck or not. And I mean it about that macaroni thing.