The Battle rages on

I’ve killed thousands and still they are coming.

No, it’s not a horror report about the stream of refugees and this is not the start of a confessional biography. Neither is it the beginning of a new novel I’m writing. I’m talking about the #Cankerworms. One could actually call it a horror story.

It is a continuous battle with no end in sight. I stepped on them, I squished them between my fingers, I cut them in half with my knife as they crawled up a tree, I picked them up with my lawnmower when I cut the grass, and I sprayed them with a product called ‘Seven’. At first, I saw them only on our fruit trees, then I spotted them on the Green Ash trees, and today I discovered they are also fond of my willow trees. They congregate in large colonies on the branches and on the trunks. Our willows are quite tall now and I found them in huge clusters so high that I couldn’t reach them even when standing on my eight foot step ladder.

In the morning they face south and soak up the warming sun. And in the evening I found them on the west side of the trunks. They also crawl all over our patio as I am barbequing. They are even on the barbeque.

Okay, I might need the exercise climbing the ladder and pumping up the pressure tank of the sprayer, but my arms are getting tired, my legs weak, and my eyes are getting weary searching for them. All I see is cankerworms in front of my eyes. Sometimes I was sure I saw them on the tree trunks only to discover those were just black knots from branches I cut off. Many of our trees have hardly any leaves left, in fact, some of them look dead. I hope they recover.

To add more fun to this entertaining pastime, today I heard a mosquito buzzing around my head. Pretty soon those wonderful critters will make our outdoor activities much more pleasurable. I can hardly wait. There will also be flies and wasps joining the crowd that is trying to drive us humans crazy and possibly make us sick. The other day I had a wood tick on me. Picked it up while cutting the grass. The fun never ends.

And yet, with all these things I do love the outdoors. It would be nice though, if we could only get rid of these annoying insects and other nasties that plague us at this time of year. Winter doesn’t actually sound so bad now.