I performed surgery.

Yes, I performed surgery today.

Armed with a kitchen knife, aluminum foil, and gardening gloves.

The squash bores have done enough damage. Today I planed action.

Yesterday evening, I stalked to Dad's gardening shelf and pulled out every gardening book that had helped me in the past. Staggering under my armload, I sat down on the living room couch and searched the indexes for "squash bores."

The information I found told me to prevent female squash bores from laying their eggs by mulching the squash plants with aluminum foil.

Okay, Amber. Make a note of that for future reference. But what about NOW?

The only solution given was to carefully slice open the stalks of the plants and remove the bores by hand.

Gulp.

"Slice the stalks? Won't that kill the plant?"

"Come on, Amber - the plants are dying anyway."

"Oh yes. Right."

So I went out this morning.

I didn't know what I was looking for. What do squash bores look like, anyway? Are they microscopic little black creatures? Or are they like large spiders? At least I could spot where they had entered the plants; holes the size of a pencil lead marked their entrances. The insides of the stalks had been chewed to gummy sawdust and pushed out the holes, littering the ground around the base of the plants.

We had three yellow squash plants left; no zucchini had survived. Cringing, I sliced open one stalk near one of the holes. This didn't feel right. I'm supposed to slice vegetables, not the plants they grow on!

Wiggling the tip of my knife inside the plant, I waited for something to happen - some swarm of tiny insects to come flying out. But the inside of the stalk was empty.

Empty. That wasn't good; there was suppose to be....whatever is suppose to be inside a stalk. Stalks aren't suppose to be hollow, and lined with more gummy sawdust - but they were.

I scraped the sawdust-like residue off the insides of the stalk, and sat back on my heels. Looking at the way I had torn up the stalk, I wondered if I should try the other two plants. I knew I hadn't solved anything on this plant.

"But I might never have an opportunity to experiment with this kind of cure again. The plants are dying anyway."

I moved on to the next plant.

Finding a hole, I sliced open a plant again. This was a little better; the stalk had a hole up the center, but it wasn't completely hollow.

No indeed.

The tip of my knife stuck something soft. Through the crack I had cut, I saw something white.

It squirmed.

I nearly hit the clouds above me. "THERE'S SOMETHING WHITE AND SQUISHY IN THIS PLANT, AND I HAVE MY KNIFE STUCK IN IT, AND IT'S MOVING!"

I don't know how I managed to drag that thing out.

It looked like a fat caterpillar. A very over-fed caterpillar. He had rolls of fat on him...or her. And a big black head, with huge eyes.

Somehow I moved my hand - with the knife - to the cement blocks surrounding the squash bed, and I pressed the ...the thing to death between my blade and the block. The blood was yellow and thick. I nearly lost my breakfast.

My churning stomach must have dulled my good sense. I stuck my knife back up in the hole.

Three more critters followed their leader to a quick and painful death.

Permit me to wind up this story before I make myself sick all over again: I found eight squash bores all together between that plant and the next. All were ugly. All were killed quickly. I left two in plain sight so I could later gross out my family.

I surrounded all three plants with foil, and put a few rocks on it to keep it from blowing away. I watered them well, hoping they would recover from surgery without complications.

I am now waiting to see if the plants survive. I hope they do, after all I went through for them.

After exiting the O.R., and changing from my scrubs, I planted two rows of beans. (Yes, I know it's a little late in the season, but we're seeing if we can get away with it.)

Planting beans is so much easier than curing diseases.

Can you believe that when I was little wanted to be a nurse?