Attack of the Worms!

  A quick dash outside in a break in the thunderstorms found me face to face with some unsavory characters.  While I was picking tomatoes, a white fluttering caught my eye.  Hmm, that appears to be something in the persimmon tree down near the marsh edge.  Despite getting thoroughly soaked by a mist that was rapidly turning into a sprinkle, a hurried hike to the tree was in order.  Oh, my!  I almost wish I had not seen this.  There, in the persimmon tree (probably twenty five feet up), was a huge mess of tent caterpillars or web worms, as folks call them.  Just what I needed!  Those things are messy and eat just about anything and everything in sight.  The web was getting soaked with the overnight rains so the caterpillars were hastily retreating onto the limbs of the tree.  Perhaps they figured since there was obviously a "leak" in their tent, they needed to seek higher ground.  

  Hurrying back inside, I thought to study the critters as best I could.  Do they really do the major damage that I had always been told?  Or perhaps, was the lore connected with the critter just a bunch of nonsense?  As long as I can remember, the thought was to kill each and every one of the critters.  So..I researched.  Yep, sure enough, the tent caterpillars do indeed munch a bunch but it seems that what aggravates folks the most is the "unsightly" webs that adorn the trees.  No one wants huge webs strung about their well-manicured lawns. Persnickety bunch of folks, huh?  That explains the current thought but why did farmers from days past fret so over the caterpillars?  Seems that it had more to do with the mass migration of worms as they search for a protected place to pupate. If there were many webs in an orchard, the worms would literally take over the place.  Fences, woodpiles, sides of barns, roadways or anything in the path of the caterpillars was covered by tens of thousands of two inch critters. I guess seeing that many critters on the move would be pretty unnerving.  So, folks took action against the critters.

  For a while, chemicals were the way to go.  Spray everything in sight with harmful chemicals and let other critters (humans included) beware!  Recently, however, things have gone "green".  More "natural" and "organic" sprays have been developed that deter the critters.  That is good news!  Pop, his generation and even, I am sure, previous ones had a more direct method of dealing with the tent caterpillars.  FIRE!  Yep, they would burn those boogers right out of their tent homes!  A long cane pole was rigged with an oily rag to make a torch.  Add a bit of turpentine and strike a match.  Poof!  The web was singed right along with its residents.  Of course, occasionally, a few tree limbs were accidentally scorched, black smoke filled the fields and, occasionally, the torch-bearer would receive a burn during the process.  The torch method was used back on the farm as far back as I remember.  In the later years, however, Pop (being the innovative fellow he was) rigged a blow torch on a long cane.  This worked well but still had its pitfalls.  While the smoke was alleviated, the torch still singed tree limbs and the weight on the end of the cane pole made it unwieldy.  

  After thinking about the alternatives of reaching the extreme height of the webs, my method is "leave them be".  I may learn to regret this but, since this is a once a year occurrence, I will ponder it again next year. My mindset may be changed by then.  Until then, I can only hope that the torrential rains will wash the critters from their tents and allow the birds to feast upon them.  Ahh, I like that thought!