The tent caterpillars are something from a horror movie. A really uneventful horror movie where people run off screaming into the night because a tent caterpillar fell out of a tree on to their head or is crawling up their leg and must be flicked away. They are thick on every surface, every plant, every railing, every foot of the now-orange street. There was even one on the floor of my bedroom, invading everywhere!
I have the sinking feeling that the black sand covering the landings of the stairs is actually droppings from all the tent caterpillars.
And even our large, handsome, hungry chickens won't eat those critters. They are beginning to form cocoons and hopefully the air will soon be full of fat happy birds gorging themselves on dull brown-gray moths.
On the plus side, the tent caterpillars aren't the only thing appearing on the plants. There are a few ripe, juicy berries and a bounty of green ones soon to become something delicious.
The stairs to the beach are a particularly appealing place for berry picking if you can reach over the tent caterpillars.
For a while I've been meaning to post a picture of my husbands handiwork on the point of the beach. With pieces of driftwood and washed up rope, Tim made a rather impressive slat-backed bench looking out at the waves which makes a lovely place to sit while the dogs run about all over the beach getting in trouble.
Up in the garden, the flowers continue to bloom, even pink poppies! Even without rain in what seems like a month, everything is still green and lush and alive and moist. It is an enchanted place here.
Grandpa finally got tired of hearing other people brag about their gardens and waiting for me to get motivated to plant all the beds I put so much work into digging and tilling. This morning he and I took the drawer of seeds up to the garden and Grandpa hoed littl vallys to be filled with seeds, tamped them down, and marked each row with a stick. We now have a garden filled with little perspective vegetables of every kind in all eight garden beds, plus the tomatoes and occasional eggplant running the length. Grandpa even found some cages so we could plant an entire bed of hot peppers for Tim
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