It started falling about two weeks ago, and I assumed the caterpillar season had started as usual. When you live surrounded by trees, you are constantly bombarded by a million little caterpillar pellets, the end result of thousands of little mouths chomping away overhead in the canopy. Usually you only see the makers if they fall to earth or come gliding past on an invisible drag line.

Two weeks ago I began noticing the little black pellets, like very coarsely ground pepper, alowly dusting everything in the front yard, and I wrongly assumed they were up the the huge cherry tree just to the south of the front porch. Two days back I realized my mistake. To my knowledge, It's not happening in the cherry, it's the elms, and they aresn't being chomped by cats at all...it's Japanese beetles. I had been finding an occasional beetle around the steps, but that's the norm here in the summer anymore. I had no idea what was going on over head because most of our trees have no lower branches and studying the leaves requires either a ladder or a pair of binocs. The last two days the breeze has been next to nothing, and you can now HEAR what's going on. No kidding, it sounds exactly like a gentle drizzle coming through the trees. I finally noticed a single skeletonized leaf lying next to the trail and thought...how odd. Many of the cats I notice eat the whole leaf, leaving a swiss-cheese appearance, not just leaving the veins. I looked up, managed to find a dangling branch on a smaller elm, and there they were. There must be thousands of them. I don't understand this though...in years past they have nibbled a bit on my flowering plants, such as my native hibiscus and the platycodon (balloon flower) around the mailbox. So far I have not even had to hand pick a single beetle. Maybe they have focused on the trees this year.

I do know that the amount of waste they are producing is staggering. THe ferns and hostas around the front steps are black as if sprayed with something, and the dew only makes it worse. I sweep the steps in the morning and by noon it is as if I had never been there.

I guess I should be content if they stay in the trees and leave everything else alone. I refuse to use chemicals unless I absolutely have to and so far I 've been ok .