A Plague Upon Our House
And I don’t mean Donald Trump.We are being attacked by millions of gypsy moths. They have denuded both crabapple trees and my witch hazel and are working on our beloved weeping beech and the oak trees. When we drive to town, Pole Dike Road is no longer shady. It looks like December for the bare branched trees. And it’s hot. Hotter without shade. Plus what is politely called caterpillar frass, a euphemism for shit, rains down on us night and day. The drought doesn’t help.
i’m afraid of losing many of our trees. So far the caterpillars have been picky. The Japanese dogwood right outside my bedroom is in full bloom and not one gypsy moth caterpillar has so far touched it. The birds can’t eat them as they are spiny and apparently taste terrible. Xena ate one and now won’t touch them. They even get into the house. We have killed many on the sunporch. Yesterday I was sitting at my computer working on a poem when I felt something on my leg and there crawling up me was a large one. At least so far they haven’t attacked the vegetables. The cats have otherwise been heroic. I felt bad when they killed a bat this week, but Xena tries always to protect us from invaders: several mice killed and a wood rat that had all come into the house. Today we have to pick black currants and make freezer jam and probably some kind of liqueur. I made so much black currant vinegar last year we don’t really need any more till next year. I’m done freezing strawberries and I made enough freezer jam. This July 4th weekend we’ll stay on our land as much as possible and avoid going out. More accidents on route 6 – 4 car pile-up most recently. I actually vacuumed my office yesterday. The floor was filthy and I felt sorry for the cats. Tons of papers into the trash. Pens lost weeks ago. I had to stop the vacuum cleaner three times to unwind all manner of detritus from the brushes that had stopped revolving. I’ve written three poems this week, one of which I am particularly proud of. In spite of being without a secretary this summer, I managed to do a submission and all the poems were taken. Last night after we had gone to bed, we were wakened by a thunderstorm, most welcome as it broke the long drought – at least temporarily. We ran out on the sunporch to cover the bed and the table and pull the rug to one side before it could get waterlogged. It rained very hard for an hour and lightly for a while after that. I don’t know how long as I finally went back to sleep. The rug still got soaked but the bed and table are dry and the chairs are fine. Woody is mopping up the water that poured in from the southern side. I had lunch with my friend Lois this week but mostly Woody and I were hunkering down and catching up with garden work and our own work. Soon we’ll have to start preparing for our annual memoir workshop the first week of August.at Omega. We skipped last year since my knees had not healed enough. It’s rough going there, all up and down hill and sometimes through the woods to get to the extremely rustic tiny cabin we stay in, the place where they have our workshop and to the dining hall and down to the parking lot all the way at the bottom and across the road. We’ve been doing the workshop for many years, maybe at least fifteen, maybe more. But still we have to update it each year to keep it fresh.