By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
I don’t have any healthy hints for you this week. I just want to tell you how tent caterpillars turned me into a cold and heartless killer. And then I want a little sympathy, please. Of course, the Andings across the road deserve more.
Two weeks ago, I looked up from gardening and saw something black all over this small tree nearby. It was alive. It was a swarm of wiggly fuzzy caterpillars.
I ran to the Internet and posted a picture. While a lot of folks responded “Yuk,” several told me I was dealing with Forest Tent caterpillars. I found an article by a naturalist who sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He said every six to 16 years there is a bumper crop of these suckers, and their preferred food is oak leaves and unless your trees were sickly, they wouldn’t really damage them. He said he personally was just going to ignore them until they turn into cocoons in two or three weeks.
That sounded okay to me, even after they came down from the trees and started crawling all over everything, including me.
After all, they were kind of cute— defenseless and confused little things that wandered around waving their head in the air like they were lost. They seemed like they just wanted to come home with me, and they succeeded fairly often, crawling up my back unbeknownst to me until they reached my neck. One went to town with me. One went to the funeral home with Donna Rinn. In the beginning, I would gently pick them off and take them outside.
The bloom had begun to fade from our friendship, but I was still tolerating them, like the naturalist said to, until the morning I looked out and found my rosebushes stripped nearly bare. Something like a murderous rage came upon me, and I lost all love and respect for tent caterpillars at that very moment. I started pulling them off like crazy, and Carl helped me. We dropped them in a bowl of soapy water and kept doing that until the bowl was full. Then we would gather handfuls and step on them wholesale. Then when it got too hard to get out from behind the bush to do either, I started pinching them to death. It was gruesome, but I didn’t care. I was like a mad woman. The rosebushes did not appear grateful at all, as they stuck me every chance they got. We didn’t stop until we were exhausted, and we could see they were greatly reduced. I know we killed thousands of them that day. The next day they were back somewhat, but not so bad. And we went after them again. But the damage was done. They didn’t really like the roses. But when all the leaves were gone, they would finally went after the roses. I posted a picture of one of the bushes, and somebody said it looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Why didn’t we get some kind of poison and spray them? Well, for one thing, I don’t like poison and didn’t want to kill good insects. Thinking about it now, I could have probably sprayed soapy water on them with better results. But I think I just wanted to personally wreck revenge on the little suckers. No more live and let live for me.
I still see some crawling around outside. Apparently, they have eaten their fill and are looking for a place to wrap themselves in their silk shrouds to wait to be transformed. At first, I was still stomping them. Now I’m back to letting them alone.
As for the rosebushes, most of the branches they stripped probably should have been pruned anyhow. I just couldn’t stand to do it because the roses were so beautiful. I will prune them now and they will probably come back more beautiful than before. Maybe I should have just ignored them and let nature handle it———Nahhh.
I am not sure of this, but I think right here, half way between Malakoff and Cross Roads must be Ground Zero for the Great Forest Tent Caterpillar Infestation. While I was having a fit about my roses being messed up, Wesley and Lisa Anding were having a much bigger problem at their Anding Acres wedding venue right across the road. The caterpillars descended on them the same day they had a wedding scheduled. No way could they call it off. Lisa said it was “raining worms,” and falling on guests. Their outdoor seating was covered and guests had to keep knocking them off. She said luckily the bride was an East Texas outdoor girl, and everybody was understanding.
But the caterpillars kept getting coming, and they had another wedding scheduled. So they had to call for big time measures. They said the tree people did not believe they could be that bad until they saw for themselves. But $675 later, they were gone by the next wedding.
Lisa and I would like to know if we really were the center of this disaster. I’d love to hear if any of you had them this bad and whether you live close to us or not.
Next week I will have recovered from this trauma, and I will once more be concerned about your and my health.