I always thought it would be zombies. Lurching dead people yearning to eat my brain, shambling around moaning. But it isn’t. Nope, it’s caterpillars. Gypsy moth caterpillars. Coming not to eat me (so far), but anything that’s green and growing. And doing a damned good job of it, too, I should add.
They stripped the tall oaks in a day and a night. Without missing a beat, they cleaned off the birch trees, rhododendrons and got to work on the maples and firs. The pine trees will die. They can’t survive defoliation. I’m told by others that they are including any fruit trees they can get to, probably as a light dessert.
The ground is seething with caterpillars, the house crawling with them. It’s the end of life on earth? Probably not … unless they come again next year and then, it might be.
They are killing my fuchsia, eating the unconquerable day lilies. Are even the hosta safe?
Call it the apocalypse of the trees. If trees could talk to us, I’m sure they would agree.
When they are finally gone, which will be in about a month, give or take a week or two, there will be a lot of rebuilding to do. Essentially, everyone will have to recreate their plantings, clear out the corpses, and come up with a plan.
2016. Remember this date. This is the year the gypsy moths beat the humans in a blowout game of epic proportions.
REBUILDING IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC SMALL TOWN
NOTE: As I was reading this, having just pressed “Publish,” I noticed a phalanx of the hairy bastards crawling up the side of the sofa accompanied by several big black ants. Are they building a united front?
I sprayed the hell out of everything and now, breathing is dicey. I just killed another ant crawling across my keyboard. Do we want to discuss “creeped out?”
I’m almost nostalgic about the good old days when ants and mice in season were the worst of the invaders.
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Categories: #Photography, Blackstone Valley, Humor, Nature, Zombie Apocalypse
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
OMG! You are clearly having a caterpiller invasion. But what’s worse is what’s coming… MOTHRA! 😉
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Not worse. Nothing could be worse. But differently awful. What a terrific summer we are having here. Yay. Let’s here it for unnatural disasters.
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My husband, who is terrified of moths, would be packing his bags to get out of there before they turn. I hope your trees, and you, of course, survive this ordeal!
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That sounds truly horrible. I’ve never experienced such a thing and would not like to. Gypsy Moth is such a pretty name too , far too good for these critters.
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When I thought about all the possible futures I might live, never did this scenario pop up. It is not only awful, it is totally surreal.
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One word- Scary.
Give me all the money in the world but I still won’t agree to live through a condition like that. It is so damn creepy. :3 How can you sleep knowing something may crawl up your skin any moment (I am shuddering at the thought!!!) ?
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When you have no choice, you do what you have to do. Where would we and the dogs go? So we get through it. And so would you. You don’t have to like it, though.
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Truee
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wow how awful- a real invasion and such destruction!
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And we live in premium apple orchard country, so you can only imagine how hard this is hitting the farmers. It’s really awful.
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Almost biblical…..
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Since the early 1990s, Chicago has had a plan to battle this pest. I do not think we have had a problem in decades. They use a fungus that that kills caterpillars and is safe to the environment. Sometimes the government actually works for us.
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I wish OUR government was working for US.
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Rich, our local government isn’t doing anything…except collecting taxes.
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They collect a lot of taxes here that we wonder what they are doing with them.
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We pay huge property taxes … and get no services. Not water, sewer, streetlights or tax collection. Nothing. They could pitch in during the crisis.
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I guess in some respects we are lucky to be in the city and a democrat in office.
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We’ve — in theory — mostly dems in office, but out here, party is not especially relevant. Small towns are problematic. Inbred politically and often mismanaged with little accountability. It’s not exclusive to our little town, not by any means. It’s frustrating. I’m too old to fight. Garry was offered the “opportunity” to run for office when we first moved here and he said “NO NO NO. They’ll be out in the driveway throwing stones at the windows.” And he was right. There’s no winning in this situation. The town is small, and in the end, living in peace is more important than fixing problems. It is terribly frustrating, especially at times like this when it is obvious that the town should be doing some stuff to help avoid future problems — at least that. For the good of the town.
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We only elect Democrats and a few Independents. Unfortunately, much of the state is Republican. Therefore we have a stalemate in Springfield.
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We don’t really have “government” out here. We have no mayor, just a town council and a school board. We have town hall meetings, but they never seem to decide anything. No matter how we vote, they just keep calling for the same vote over and over until they get one they like. Sometimes, they just meet without calling a meeting and overrule anything we voted and just do what they want. And some of their decisions are hard to comprehend. Just … so short-sighted.
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We have Rahm.
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And we have the spraying people! As I write! Yay!! Maybe I can finally get out of the house!
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No way was I hitting ‘like’ on this post. If there had been an ‘I hope you survive’ button I would have hit that.
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The sprayers are coming today. Not sure when, but coming. We’ll survive. Not happily, but somehow. Not going to forget this one so fast, either.
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We had an ant problem last year, probably because of the house being torn apart. What totally freaked me out is that whenever we would see one large black ant, it was almost always accompanied by one small black ant. Talk about conspiracy!
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So just imagine how I felt to see two large caterpillars in the company of a couple of big black ants and one small red one. Terrifying thoughts of impending insect alien conpiracies … Having an imagination is not always a happy thing.
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Yeah, conspiracy. That’s what it is. Trump’s people.
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WE had an invasion of ants – they crawled over the dining table, everywhere in the bathroom, and of course the kitchen. Finally after the normal over the counter stuff didn’t work the landlord brought in the heavy guns. We had to disappear for the day while he fumigated the house. Now we are ant free. We couldn’t leave anything at all in the kitchen. They had even invaded the dishwasher. Good luck with the heavy guns
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We have to be careful because of the dogs … and US … and the birds, the wetlands (this area is all considered wetland). Fortunately, they make some non-toxic spray i can use in and around the house which only kills crawling things. It makes it a little hard for Garry and I to breathe, but it doesn’t exactly poison us. That’s for the ants.
The caterpillars are even more tricky because stuff that kills them also kill bees — which are having problems anyway. The stuff that doesn’t kill the bees, kills birds. We need the birds. And other stuff kills the bats who were almost wiped out by their own plague a few years ago and are just beginning to recover. I’ve been assured that this stuff won’t kill anything but caterpillar, garden beetles, and some other crawling things that we won’t miss. I just hope it at least makes inroads into their population. There are SO MANY of them.
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Very scary when the insects fight back
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If we didn’t care how much damage we did to the rest of the environment, it would be easy. But we do care, so we have to find non-environmentally-destructive solutions to really difficult BIG problems. Having a conscience isn’t always easy, either.
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Wish I had Steve McQueen’s sawed off shotguns from “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. I’d blast those buggers to smithereens.
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I am scratching as I read this……
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Garry and I are suffering from phantom bugs. Everytime we feel anything, we start to jump. Spooked. Really spooked.
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Don’t scratch too much. I still have the welts and bites from last week. So damn itchy.
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I’ve noticed a few of those large ants inside our house too. No caterpillars yet. What a nightmare! I’ sorry you are going through this.
Leslie
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The ants are an annual event everywhere. We had them when we lived in Boston. I think that’s just life in the north in the spring and early summer. But the gypsy moth … well … that’s like a locust plague. Very much like a locust plague. They come, they strip the place bare, and usually you don’t get a rerun the following year. If you do, then you go from crisis to calaminty.
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We usually have a bout with the little ones but this year it is the big one that are out.
Leslie
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We get both. Life in the country is overrated.
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Marilyn, the city isn’t without its problems too.
Leslie
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I know. Lived there, too. Just different problems.
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Day of the locust. Our fault for reading them books.
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I’m pretty sure this one isn’t our fault, unless “us” is the species that is humankind.
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Leslie, it’s warfare!! Caterpillars, ants, big black bugs and rogue flies.
Lock ‘n load!
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Get the saucers of beer out. What a way to go!
Leslie
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I think we should just start drinking the beer until we no longer care.
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There’s always that.
Leslie
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But they are eating themselves to death. If they kill off all the trees what else can they eat. Do you think they might mutate and …. no, not that, but gives me an idea for a horror story. I had slugs last year that made holes in my hostas, the ones with the light green stripe. This year I was ready and emptied a whole box of slug pellets, the blue ones, between the roots. One thing is certain, I look at every caterpillar in my garden now with suspicion, especially the furry ones.
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Gypsy moths are opportunistic and in a pinch, they will eat anything that grows, including the grass. There is an end to this … about a month from now, when they turn into ugly little brown moths. Then we will have moths everywhere, but the crawlers will be gone. Garry and I were trying to decide whether it was worth watering the fuchsia. Finally, he did. Of course the watering can was crawling with caterpillars too. The spray people are coming sometimes today. I hope it helps!! If it just cuts down the number by a few million, that would be worth something.
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It’s not pretty, Mrs. Swiss.
Last night, we were watching the telly and I saw imaginary flies. Then I looked down at my white lounge pants and saw a black caterpillar. A rogue caterpillar trying to catch me off my guard. I sprang to my feel like I was 21 again and dispatched the bugger!!
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Here’s it’s something else but a similar scenario. For the caterpillar there is redemption – when they become butterflies. Good luck with this problem.
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I wish they would become butterflies. They don’t. They become unattractive brown moths whose only function is to create the next generation of gypsy moths. And when they morph into moths, we are going to have MILLIONS of moths everywhere. Won’t THAT be fun!!
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Those brown moths are a-comin’…as sure as the turnin’ of the earth.
Time to reap the wild wind.
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