This week came the moment we were waiting for: the hatching of the praying mantises.

Doug purchased an egg case containing about three hundred of these formidable creatures, who happen to be our state insect. As soon as the temperature rises, tiny cricket-like bodies emerge from the egg case. It is important to release the hungry baby mantises moments after they hatch, lest they soon begin eating each other. It is sibling rivalry at its finest.

We released them in our garden, where they will spend their lives camouflaged in leaves and braches, patiently stalking their prey. Praying mantises snatch their victims with vice-like, powerful forelegs and crush them in half. Their triangular, alien-like heads rotate 180 degrees, and they can see fifty feet away. Their love stories never have a happy ending—the female mantises devour the males alive immediately after mating, and sometimes during. Somehow, it doesn’t put a damper on the mood.

Nope. I don’t believe we’ll be adding the swinging bench to the garden this year.