I found it while mowing the back yard. And it immediately brought back some gruesome memories of my youth; riding a bicycle on the sidewalk and running over hundreds of these ugly tent worms. I mainly remember the popping noise they made as they were permanently crushed under my tire. Or the time I had one fall on my head as I was walking under a tree. They were just so gross.
So you can imagine my despair of discovering them in my yard. Which is odd because this is our third year and NOW they pop up? When I first discovered them, I immediately told my husband. We both peered up into the tree limb with the ugly ass web tents.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“My dad would take a torch and burn the suckers dead.” I replied.
Now, in hindsight what my dad did was most probably more of a “Tim Allen” reaction using a semi-valid reason to play with fire in the backyard. It is reassuring to know that it still works today. My husband happily made a torch, soaked it in gasoline and burned them away.
But more came back. So then I cut the limbs and put them in the fire pit to be burned. Still more were discovered last night.
That’s it – I am going to have to take this more seriously. So when I find the neighbor’s tree that gave my tree these STD tree worms, I am going to have to have that serious adult conversation: no more tree fornicating is allowed in our neighborhood.