Communing with nature

Many of you know that Christina and I have different views of nature. When we're in Otis, Chris is most happy up to her elbows in the garden planting something. I am most happy in the screened porch watching her from a rocking chair. I see no point in getting dirty and bitten to plant something you can probably buy a whole lot cheaper. As a general rule, our paths do not cross during this time except for my occasional "very nice dear" from the safety of the porch. Somehow, the gardening gene so prominent in my father and sisters, missed me completely. I remember my father desperately trying to coax anything out of the small square of dirt in front of the house on Leland Avenue in the Bronx. He was never happier than when they moved to New Jersey and he finally had a small actual garden with flowers and shrubs. My sisters Pat and Joyce (and Bob) share that devotion.

However, this weekend something happened that had us seriously (?!?!?!) considering selling the house and hiding in the City - the invasion of the tent caterpillars! I can honestly say I have never seen anything so horrible and creepy - we were invaded by tens of thousands (I'm not exaggerating!) of large and small caterpillars that hatch and then fall from trees only to march across the lawn looking for a place to make a cocoon and 'morph' to the next stage. We know this because we came up a little later last year to find the house covered with firmly attached small white cocoons.

This year the numbers have exploded! When we looked down at the ground, along the roof line and on the siding, we faced masses of marching caterpillars. We tried blowing them off the house and deck but they just came back. Chris suggested "ShopVac-ing" them. At first I thought she was kidding, but by the next morning we stood shifts Vac-ing them up. At one point we had cleared the back of the house and went in to eat. When we came back out Chris Vac-ed up another 208! When we went to the theater in Pittsfield and parked on the street, we foolishly left the top down and when we came back the car was full (at least 50) of caterpillars. They also got on our shoes and clothing. On Tuesday, we left and stopped for dinner in Litchfield. When Chris went to the bathroom I heard a piercing scream. There was one in her pants. We've been dreaming about crawling things for days.

We've been asking everybody we see about how to deal with the caterpillars. The general consensus is "live with it, they'll be gone in three weeks". Other suggestions include cutting down all the trees or burning the nests (which are 50 feet up in the trees). It's not clear how much damage they will do other than leaving an unsightly mess and causing nightmares.

Ain't nature wonderful!