This is about the stick bug and not (yet) about Azoia. When we were little some children would have one in their terrarium but I must admit that I had never been face to face with one till a couple of years ago when I caught one feasting on a patio plant. It startled me with a sudden movement (they hardly move) and I grabbed the little bugger and trew it over the balcony. Then I ran down and took him, one leg poorer, back up and felt guilty for weeks.

Little did I know.

Two years later our evergreen hedge looks like a skeleton. Apparently the loss of a leg does not stand in the way of healthy reproduction. After a few weeks of static astonishment, Gijs launched an offensive: He spoons them out of the branches and from the wall and gate with a spatula into a bowl and then quickly transports them - before they wriggle out - to the estate of the neighbors on the other side of the street. We do not know them. The neighbors. Anyway, they have numerous hedges that can do with some trimming. No exaggeration, our highest day score was 60 specimen. Let’s just hope I don’t drag them or their eggs to Azoia with our seedlings from the patio.