Pam and I have a nice house. It’s one of those old farmhouses that’s been remodeled a hundred different ways. Since the kids left, it’s just Pam and me. And a few thousands of ladybugs.

Several times a day, I go around the house sweeping ladybugs into a dustpan and tossing them outside. Depending on the time of day, they gather around different windows.

The siege of ladybugs is worse in the country. Townie friends report that some of the little buggers make it to the big city. If you don’t have them, be thankful for avoiding this pestilence.

In the fall, they are obviously coming inside our home. They overwinter in the cracks and crevices of our house. The cracks and crevices are like Phoenix for a ladybug.

This time of year, I assume they’re trying to get outside. But they don’t seem to take a direct route. Sometimes, I can’t tell what they’re doing. I’ve seen them walking in circles like I do when I can’t find my phone.

I’m sure they have their reasons for what they do. But let’s be honest. How big can the brain of a ladybug be?

I know that some of you are saying, “Those aren’t ladybugs. Those are Asian lady beetles.” I’ve heard that a thousand times. Excuse me while I get something off my chest. OF COURSE THEY’RE LADYBUGS!

“Ladybug,” like cricket and grasshopper, is a general category of insect. There are 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world. The scientific name of that family is Coccinellidae. We could call them Coccinelady bugs.

The one crawling on the window next to me is darn sure a ladybug. It’s not a native ladybug. I remember finding ladybugs in the grove when I was young. I thought they were cute. Cute as a bug in a rug.

Now that we have bugs in the rug and the curtains everywhere else, they are no longer cute. These of course are an invasive ladybug.

I found this from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. (And who doesn’t believe in invertebrate conservation?)

“Of the 500 or so ladybug species in the United States, nearly 200 are exotic species imported and released as pest control agents.” It seems our current plague stems from a USDA release to attack tree pests in the South.

Around here, their explosion in numbers coincided with soybean aphids arriving. Aphids love sucking on our eighty-six million acres of soybeans. The lady beetles love chomping on the aphids.

Aphids followed by a few decades soybeans taking over half the Corn Belt. Soybeans, soybean aphids, and these ladybugs are all transplants for the Asian continent.

To round the invasive circle, aphids overwinter on buckthorn shrubs that fill the edges of groves. Originally, buckthorn was imported as a fast-growing windbreak species. Now buckthorns are a curse.

Do you detect a pattern here? Human beings making short-term decisions with long-term consequences?

Someone looking at our planet from a distance might observe that human beings are the most persistently invasive species on Earth. Humans have crawled into every crack and crevice of the globe.

It’s a tremendous success story for mankind. Unfortunately, we do not tread lightly on the planet. Correcting and lessening environmental impacts is an ongoing task for each generation. If you are young, the damage you are dealing with belongs to previous generations. Thanks Grandpa.

Back to our ladybugs. It’s not a plague of biblical proportions, but it’s close. Moses brought news of ten plagues to the Pharoah. They included frogs, gnats, flies, and locusts. Ladybugs fall somewhere between gnats and flies. That begs the question, if we all repent, will they go away?

Until then, what to do with the little buggers? We all swat flies and slap mosquitoes. Unfortunately, if you employ a similar strategy on these ladybugs, you will regret it. If you squish them like a bug, they stink like a skunk.

Some people have the foundations of their homes sprayed with ladybugicide with varying degrees of success. But if you are trying to reduce your exposure to chemicals, this may not be the best route.

Speaking of chemicals, I was talking to a friend about how our moms were all part-time chemical applicators. Every kitchen back then had a spray can of Raid sitting on the counter. During fly season, moms would spray a fog of Raid about the kitchen as a preventative measure. That might explain some of the strange behavior by us Boomers.

Once the ladybug has entered your home, what is to be done? I have this dilemma. I don’t like killing things. That has limited my hunting career. I did butcher chickens. But I felt bad for the soon-to-be-headless bird as I readied the hatchet.

Many people vacuum up the little beasts. That is Pam’s preferred bug removal plan. I find myself imagining the poor creatures trapped in a bag, thrashing about. It is the kind of thing bug pacifists think about.

Hence, my sweeping them up and throwing them outside. Pam wonders whether they don’t immediately find a way back into our home.

I had a dilemma as fall turned to winter, and freezing temperatures arrived. If I threw them out in the cold, was I subjecting them to a horribler death?

Thankfully, I have a friend who is an animal ethicist. Karen worked in a vet’s office. When the kids were younger and we had a menagerie of critters on the farm, Karen and I often discussed how best to deal with an injured bunny or an aging cat.

Karen also sweeps up and throws her ladybugs outside. Even on a wintry night, she holds out the possibility that the liberated ladybug can find lifesaving shelter under some brush. It is the kind of moral puzzle that animal ethicists deal with.

We thought about notifying ICE. The Insect Control and Enforcement agency could have come in to deport the unwelcome visitors. But Pam wasn’t too keen on dozens of masked agents blanketing our house and cruelly wrestling the ladybugs to the ground before sending them off to detainment facilities.

Maybe I’ll just repent.