Well this is the other half of that piece of watercolor paper (yes, it's very hard for me to paint a sheet and then cut it in half - it makes me short of breath just thinking about it) made into a clean and simple card for Ceal's Falliday Fest challenge today.
Her challenge is all about the colors of fall so it was perfect. I did the same thing - tore holes in masking paper and then stamped the Dictionary stamp trough it to get a bit of text on the leaves, since it's the time of year when it's fun to go outside and read a book and listen to the birds singing.
links to supplies
We don't get these brilliant leaves here. This is the time of year when we start waging war on next year's bugs.
When we first bought this house, we bought in in the dog days of summer. The following spring, we went through some very dark times in Austin. We had a ten-year epic hatch of a flightless moth that brought the grossest, creepiest plague to our trees.
Every tree - for MILES, was COVERED with webs, and streamers hanging down from these webs like tinsel straight out of hell with a worm hanging from each of the million streamers in each tree. They would sway back and forth and were very sticky - they'd stick in your hair, on your car - it was truly apocalyptic and we've never been the same. Half of the entire city looked like the set of a horror movie. The caterpillars of the cankerworm (nice name right?) also defoliate an entire tree in about a hot second - so all of our trees were leafless, webbed sticks dangling worms.
The only way to save yourself from this plague is to apply Tanglefoot to the base of your oak trees. The females crawl up the trees to lay their eggs in the fall, which then rain down hell in the spring.
Tanglefoot keeps them from ever getting up in the trees in the first place, and is not a pesticide (I am opposed to poisoning everything), it's just a physical barrier.
The most important date on our calendar every year is Tanglefoot day! We will never forget #wormpocalypse2003.
I think they're everywhere, not just Texas. So consider yourself warned!
So there's your bug trivia today from Austin, TX. You're welcome!
Loveyameanitbye.
I totally get your plague. Here in Minnesota we have army worm plagues. Yes, it's been so bad your car can slide going down the blacktop. My daughter stayed in her room with the curtains closed for days bcuz her screens were covered with slimy green worms. Thank heavens it only happens about every 7 years.
ReplyDeleteLove your posts, I always get a good laugh from them unless they are the very touching ones, then a sweet cry, which is a good thing too! Have a fun day! Pam N.
ReplyDeleteI love your sense of humor and card making skills...now that's the combo we all need to succeed these sometimes uphill difficulties of conquering a new technique! Your latest post about the Austin curse of Wormpocalypse brought both sympathy and laughter to me. Here in Northern Baltimore County Maryland, we have been invaded by the Asian Stink Bug for the past 7 or 8 yrs. They have the same pattern of reproduction in the fall as do your caterpillars but also fly and gather around doors, windows and any nook or cranny which brings them into the house. They will winter indoors and when touched give off the most horrid smell...thus the name! Makes you keep windows closed on sunny nice days lest you become their host for the winter. Mother nature is a formidable friend!
ReplyDelete