Invasion of the Army Worms

The army worms or tent caterpillars hatched, millions of  'em. I figured they were a feast for birds, but they crawled like an army toward my house and then at lights-out in the guest room, about 2 a.m., I saw Pseudaletia unipuncta crawling all over my walls and carpeting. . . they kept advancing. . .I vacuumed up maybe 200 in all. Wondering where they found entry, I stepped outside, and the stoop and the door were PAVED with the crawly things (dropping thousands of black pinhead turds), and around my head buzzed a universe of wasps dive-bombing and eating them. Immediately I threw lime over the largest mass of worms, and then bleach, and then powdered my threshold with ground red pepper.

With a sigh I lay down in bed only to see one descending from the ceiling via a silken string. Grabbed it with a tissue. They spurt reddish-brown when crushed. (My kitchen floor looks like somebody cut an arm real good with a chef's knife.) The next morning I found a worm sharing my bed. (That's not a joke; that's literal truth.)

So shocked was I by the nighttime home invasion I didn't take many photos until this morning when I surveyed the battlefield with all the satisfaction of my ancestor Genghis Khan. Then I examined what these caterpillars had done to plants: skeletonized the leaves [see above photo], and they were still at it, so many thousands that their crunching and droppings are audible, like light rain.

When they find a suitable spot they begin growing white fuzz to cocoon themselves [photo at right], hoping to become moths in a little while. I have never ever seen an invasion of army worms like this. Their ranks also included true inchworms (thin green ones), and fat green caterpillars. I vow to fight them to my last pepper flake.

Open House

The kitchen door and screen here aren't flush with the doorjamb. Underneath and through those doors have slunk and marched and flown all sorts of creatures, right into my house like they owned the place. In October, spiders creep in to take refuge for the winter. I once had a Halloween dinner for family and it was as if I had ordered spiders to walk across the room every minute as a party favor.

Mouse settled in and stashed an ounce or two of cracked corn in the toe of a boot I don't often wear. That same year a mouse (the same frugal mouse?) made a silo in the ring-binding of my Betty Crocker cookbook. During a really hard winter when all food is secured against mice, they scratch at and eat my Ivory soap. In the pantry closet, just last month, a mouse chewed a stack of 250 table napkins to shreds and built a fabulous nest of them.

Wasps buzz indoors and sleep or build nests all winter up in a window frame. I found one who drowned in a jar of honey (I'd lost the cap and topped it with saran wrap and a rubber band; the wasp broke its way through). They sleep all winter in window frames, and in spring wake up trapped behind the plastic window insulation. The question is, how do I free them and direct them out of the house without getting stung? (I'd squash them, but they get really aggressive when I try!!)

During the drought of 2006, a lizard in search of water came in beneath the door and spent two weeks residing in the laundry room. I grew fond of him and named him Harrison.

Moths flutter in starting in August, planning to eat my clothes and blankets, and I chase 'em but rarely catch 'em. Once, though, I was boiling some sugar water for hummingbird nectar, and a moth flew right into it and boiled to death. I said to it, "What were you thinking?"

Woke up on a very rainy night, and there in the bathroom was a foot-long blacksnake in who probably came in under the kitchen door so he/she would not be drowned. Night crawlers, plain earthworms, fuzzy caterpillars and large centipedes do this also. These I pick up and throw outside.

Every year a "walking stick" comes and hangs on the screen door at eye level. Clearly he wants my attention. I tell him thanks, but he's not my type. Then he changes his color, comes back and looks hopeful: "Is this more your type?"

Somebody cut the kitchen door wrong long ago -- looks as if it was done with a handsaw -- just about a half-inch too high, and curved -- and it can't be fixed.