East Coast Tents

Yesterday afternoon I was looking out my window into my tiny backyard. There's a wooden deck and a large overhanging wooden deck above. Beyond the deck is a patch of muddy weeds fenced in by a 6-foot wooden fence. In case that all sounds nice to you, consider that yesterday it suddenly morphed into a scene from "Night of the Living Dead." Or something.

We just got through a long spell of rainy days. I lost count, as one rainy day rained into the next. After awhile, you start to measure time by how deep a puddle you have to stick your feet in to enter your house. Before the rain, we had one week of very high heat-- in the 90's, with East Coast humidity. (I was conveniently hospitalized the entire week, so my delicate constitution never experienced anything but purified, climate-controlled air.)

So combine record-breaking heat followed by enough water to ripen seeds from King Tut's tomb, and you have the perfect recipe for the scene that unfolded in my yard : hordes of caterpillars. At first I only saw a couple. I was intrigued and went out to take a peek. And then, while I was a very far 5 feet from the safety of my door, I noticed they were everywhere. Everywhere. On every surface. Dangling down from the deck above. FALLING DOWN from the deck above. Rising up from between the deck slats. There were parades of them all along the fence. They blended in with the wood and the mud so well, that just when I thought I could take a step, one appeared or dropped down. It...was...nightmarish.

I'm not afraid of caterpillars (though after this description you probably have serious doubts about that statement). I don't think they're cute as bunnies, either. Like artichokes, maybe. I'm not afraid of artichokes, but I think they're a little icky looking. So if I suddenly found myself surrounded by wiggling, creeping artichokes and they were popping out at me and falling on me, I might have the same reaction.

This morning, much to my relief, the caterpillars were gone. I figured they had marched on to another yard, having tasted the weeds in my yard and decided this restaurant was definitely "Two Thumbs Down." But on returning from the temple this afternoon, I discovered they had returned, too. And maybe brought friends.

Nevertheless, I am an intrepid blogger and felt obligated to get pictures to share. Please forgive my lousy camera phone :


This one reared its head up to me like a savage beast only moments after I snapped it :


Also participating in this adventure was my dog Lotus, who is not really wearing sneakers, but is being headlocked into observing "Do not kill."


And because the biologist in me insists on labeling them as something other than "icky," "nightmarish," or "artichoke-like," I felt obligated to determine what kind of caterpillar they are. I don't know how tricky caterpillar-typing is, but as near as I can tell, they are the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. ET's (oh for Pete's sake, how perfect is THAT) prefer cherry trees, and there's a nice big fat one just a few feet from my yard. If they all spin cocoons, this place is gonna look like a mummy crypt pretty fast.

Now, an interesting thing happened when I was trying to take the pictures. I had to get really close for my lousy camera to get any detail, and while I was nose to nose, I noticed that they have pretty cute, fuzzy little black faces. I thought, "Wow, I guess I've really been working on seeing the Buddha in all beings." And then, as if to smack me out of any hint of a prideful thought, a caterpillar that was dangling from the deck above came whizzing right by my ear and plopped down onto the deck. Cute and fuzzy-wuzzy maybe, but I ran back inside my house like a little sissy girl, making the kind of sound that comes out entirely involuntarily, "Eeaahhurrkkeeahh."

And inside is where I shall remain until they crawl away for good. It's cool-- I've got enough food for at least a week. Just enough time to figure out how to use Jedi Mind Tricks to say, "Go to the cherry tree next door. Nirvana awaits you, oh fuzzy-faced ones."

Unless of course that plan backfires, and the cherry tree ends up filled with escaped hamsters instead....