The months of being sheltered in place to stave off the pandemic, staying active when activity was difficult, shopping on line, ordering food delivery, buying groceries on off peak hours, Skyping, Zooming, Face timing, watching countless streaming programs; all seemed so much easier than dealing with recent plague of catepillars.
These critters seemed to appear like a bad horror movie. Defoliating our trees, dropping their frass ( a polite word for catepillar shit) everywhere, and scaring away the wildlife we love to watch and record. Finally after all the destruction the catepillars are slowly disappearing. We manged today to finally return to the joy of sitting outside and soaking in the wonders of nature.
We started the morning with the arrival of deer. One young buck, a doe and her two fawns running and prancing in our back forest. Since the sun is now pouring in to these otherwise dark woods we could see the young fawns chasing and playing with out a care. A scene from Bambi enters your mind.
The birds were the next to appear coming to the feeder. Species we haven't seen since the worm plague started to arrive. Slowly our old friends were returning to the feeder. Even saw a bluebird again. The sounds of bird songs filled our ears.
Our greatest pleasure was the return of Mr. P, our resident Pileated Woodpecker. we rejoiced in his return having believed we might never see him again. Once he appeared the other woodpeckers made their return also. Seemed like a second spring in July.
Feels like we not only have survived the pandemic but also the plague. We now await to see which trees will survive and which will not return.
Oh and there were 18 frogs in the pond. Wonders never cease!
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These are the trees in front yard. No, not fall but defoliated by catepillars.
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Side yard trees. The maples seem to be okay but as you can see they are covered with catepillars.
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Close encounter of the CATEPILLAR kind. Maple trunk. Disgusting!
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Oak trees stripped of their spring leave. Reading about this event says that they might recover.
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Better photo of the oak tree, I do hope it regains it's leaves.
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| White pine bottom branches have been defoliated the top still looks secure. | | Conifers may not recover.
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| We now have more sunlight but at what cost we don't yet know. |
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As you can see this has been a very trying event. The leaf litter and catepillar frass covering the ground was another problem. The cement walk and gravel drive are stained in brown. I have been power washing the cement surfaces on a daily basis and gradually they may return to semi normal color.
On the brighter side the deck is almost completed. Some garden flowers are blooming. The deer got a good healthy portion of our flowering plants but there are a few survivors.
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One of the two lonely lilies left from a large patch . Evidently the buds are tasty morsels to deer.
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A blossom from our blue hydrangea. We have it fenced in behind a net to save it from the deer.
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| Finally after three years our oak leaf hydrangea has one of it's first three blossoms blooming. |
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A real ladybug a gardeners favorite little bug.
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The deck progresses
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