Plagues
This time of year huge swarms of Christmas tree locusts (Locusta laboriosus) migrate north from South and Central America to our mountains. Armed with chain saws and speaking Spanish they devour our young Christmas trees at the peak of their lives. Indeed, whole fields of trees like these ...
... are seen to be stripped clean -- needles, branches, trunks and all -- to ground level in an afternoon.
All these pests leave behind in their carnage, are the stumps and an occasional fallen tree for reasons I know not why.
Oddly enough, these locusts do not eat the tree, but rather accumulate them in huge piles -- thousands upon thousands -- at places prepared for them along the roadways in our county.
Huge iron beasts of burden, most having 18 wheels, come and distribute them to places far and wide across the land. Once there, they are again accumulated into somewhat smaller groupings on abandoned lots throughout the town and villages where attempts are made to repair the damage by drilling holes in the bottom of the trunks and standing the poor trees upright on metal rods driven into the ground for that purpose.
This erstwhile second tier tree farmer soon find the damage irreparable and begin offering the trees for sale to folks like you and I who take them home and attempt to grow them singularly in our living rooms or dens, dressing them will all manner of shinny baubles and electric lights. Alas, our efforts always fail and soon enough we begin to see trees laying in the gutters of our streets, waiting for the refuse man to collect them and accumulate them one last time at the dump where they are ground into mulch and returned to the earth by the same swarms of Spanish speaking Locusta laboriosus who first devoured them in the fields.
In spring the tree farmers, a die hard lot, plant new saplings in the barren fields and the whole process, taking 7 years, or more, from beginning to end, starts once again.
Christmas trees are the second largest source of income in the county, outdistanced only by the Cannabis sativa grown by farmers not content to wait 7 years for a return on their efforts. This crop which grows as well as Christmas trees in our climate, alas, is not exactly legal and aircraft fly daily over the hills, seeking out small patches of the herb hidden among legal vegetation for swarms of brown locusts (Locusta deputii var. Barney Fife) to come hack it dead with machetes, accumulate it in great piles and burn it in bonfires while standing downwind in the sweet smelling smoke.
Such is agriculture.
... are seen to be stripped clean -- needles, branches, trunks and all -- to ground level in an afternoon.
All these pests leave behind in their carnage, are the stumps and an occasional fallen tree for reasons I know not why.
Oddly enough, these locusts do not eat the tree, but rather accumulate them in huge piles -- thousands upon thousands -- at places prepared for them along the roadways in our county.
Huge iron beasts of burden, most having 18 wheels, come and distribute them to places far and wide across the land. Once there, they are again accumulated into somewhat smaller groupings on abandoned lots throughout the town and villages where attempts are made to repair the damage by drilling holes in the bottom of the trunks and standing the poor trees upright on metal rods driven into the ground for that purpose.
This erstwhile second tier tree farmer soon find the damage irreparable and begin offering the trees for sale to folks like you and I who take them home and attempt to grow them singularly in our living rooms or dens, dressing them will all manner of shinny baubles and electric lights. Alas, our efforts always fail and soon enough we begin to see trees laying in the gutters of our streets, waiting for the refuse man to collect them and accumulate them one last time at the dump where they are ground into mulch and returned to the earth by the same swarms of Spanish speaking Locusta laboriosus who first devoured them in the fields.
In spring the tree farmers, a die hard lot, plant new saplings in the barren fields and the whole process, taking 7 years, or more, from beginning to end, starts once again.
Christmas trees are the second largest source of income in the county, outdistanced only by the Cannabis sativa grown by farmers not content to wait 7 years for a return on their efforts. This crop which grows as well as Christmas trees in our climate, alas, is not exactly legal and aircraft fly daily over the hills, seeking out small patches of the herb hidden among legal vegetation for swarms of brown locusts (Locusta deputii var. Barney Fife) to come hack it dead with machetes, accumulate it in great piles and burn it in bonfires while standing downwind in the sweet smelling smoke.
Such is agriculture.
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