The Spotted Lantern Fly - It's Personal Now

Over the past two summers, every other day I’d see two Spotted Lantern Flies (SLF) climbing up my back screen door.  I’d usually bat about .500 in my attempts to terminate them.  The morning after Hurricane Ida came through New Jersey, I walked out my front door to survey the damage.  About nine feet from the front door is an old, large, five trunk white birch tree.  Unfortunately for the tree and me, white birch sap to the spotted lantern fly is like a T-Bone steak to humans.  Our tree was covered in them.  If you walk past the tree, a number of these large flies will launch off the tree, as if they were spring-loaded and jump onto you.  It feels like someone has thrown a hand full of nickels at your back.   And here’s the problem.  After a maniacal session of spotted lantern fly destruction where at least 20 have met their fate, I’ll come back ten minutes later and 40 more are on the tree.  It’s almost as if they’re mocking me, which throws me back into my ninja warrior mode and hence begins this never ending circle of death that has become my life.  Who knew retirement could be so fun.

So I did go to the Penn State web site for scientific solutions to the SLF infestation.  They review a number of dangerous sounding chemicals that if applied incorrectly could cause that third horn to grow in.  Accepting my non-existent patience level and knowing that I’m the last person that should be dealing with fire, electricity or dangerous chemicals for that matter, I’ve opted to ignore this option.  They do describe in some detail, a “kit” you can build to catch said flies.  After reviewing the 47 page master-plan document, I decided that given my personal limitations described above, that the kit would not be in the best interest of my sanity.

This leads us to the home remedy solution track.  I’ve gone out and purchased two gallons of vinegar, one gallon of Pine Sol cleaner, and a bunch of dawn dish detergent.  With concoction in a spray bottle attached to a garden hose, I’m up way too high on a latter dousing this tree every other day.   My wife has not come near me in weeks.  And the result: NADA!   I think they’re gulping it down.  I then breakdown and buy a roll of sticky fly paper.  I’ve seen similar wraps around the neighborhood, but have been unimpressed with the results.  But I’m desperate now and if someone told me to hire a witch doctor and run around your property naked, I’d do it.  Well, it appears that I bought the industrial strength version of the sticky flypaper.  All of my fingers were glued together for a while and I can tell you that scratching the top of my head was a big no-no.  After wrapping all five tree trunks, they caught a total of seven SLFs.  The only good thing the wrap did was catch regular flies, which were feeding in mass on the carcasses of the SLFs that I have killed.  The smell is just fabulous – we’re having no problem with vampires.

Our neighborhood is about 40 years old and only on my side of the street do the houses still have white birches.    And it’s only our side of the street where the spotted lantern flies are attacking.  If I walk down my side of the street just about every neighbor will come out and either share a new twist to their SLF tale of woe, or provide a new piece of information on how to fight this enemy – often uncovered from a forbidden dark web site.  Oddly, our neighbors across the street are oblivious to the SLF infestation.  Some even deny there is a problem.  This, after I’ve brought them on tours of my front yard where I explain in detail how I subdued armies of flies and show the carnage.  Sadly, it could be that they won’t believe until my trees are finished and this plague moves on to their property.  

For now, I’ve moved into acceptance mode.  My SLF support group is very popular up in the Hills.  Unfortunately I do occasionally fall off the wagon.  And it’s during these rare, haunting times late at night where you can see a man, broom in hand, swinging wildly at trees.

The Joys of Fishing & True Lies

So after twenty years of owning a lake house it was time to pass the baton to another owner who enjoys poison ivy and double the yard work in his life.  And with this sale, the vast majority of a sizable collection of fishing equipment will no longer be taunting me.    I’m also expecting a sizable reduction in my psych bills; you see for the last 20 years I’ve come very close to catching a monster size bass.  As the familiar story goes, they always seem to get away, or more likely they sense it’s my line and they just stay away.    

You have to understand the relationship I have with fishing, it’s based solely on luck.  There is no skill involved what so ever.  I can generally catch fish in one of two ways: First, a fish is swimming along and happens to be looking in the opposite direction. When he turns around, he yawns and sucks my hook deep into his mouth.  The second methodology is where the fish is a kamikaze or has strong suicidal tendencies.   I have a 52 inch, 64 pound Chinook mounted on my wall.  This prehistoric looking salmon was in a spawning frenzy and jumped onto my hook while making his final swim up an Alaskan river.  The boat guide assured me that no skill was required to catch this fish.  He continued saying, it was completely dumb luck, a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  He suggested that I go out and buy a lottery ticket.

The first piece of fishing gear to go is my kayak, specifically engineered for fishing.  Translation: I’ll have a tougher time tipping it over.  I gave it to my neighbor who I call the fish whisperer.  I figured it would be just and right for the kayak to be in the hands of someone who would know how to use it.  I liken it to a thoroughbred racehorse finally getting a real jockey to ride him as opposed to John Candy.

Next to go: my 20 year old, fourteen foot, 2,000 pound, metal hull row boat.   This rowboat is planted on land in an upside down position.  It has not been turned over in more than a year.  There is a good possibility that carnivores are living underneath.   In years past I’ve set off fireworks under it to scare away the demons that might have decided to take up residence inside. Unfortunately or fortunately new community rules preclude me from setting off fireworks.   Added to that, my last “under the boat fireworks extravaganza” set off a small brush fire under the boat from the dry dead grass.  It was easily extinguished but when it comes to fire and me, I’m like the Frankenstein monster, something bad almost always happens. Currently I’m not sure what might be living underneath, but the boat needs to be flipped so I can get it into the lake (praying it doesn’t sink… right away) and drive it to the marina where its new owner is waiting.  Significant problem is the weight of the boat and that I need to flip, by myself.  (We’ll put aside the armies of venomous creatures that will be totally ticked off by my intrusion and take vengeance on me.)  The last time it was flipped, my godson and his friend did it.  In my younger days this would not have been a problem, but because I’ve advanced to the upper limits of what I generously call middle age, I need to be careful. (I have a 200-count bottle of Advil waiting for me if things go sideways.)  I position myself like a Bulgarian Olympic weight lifter in the middle of the boat.  Trying my best to keep exemplary form and use my legs to lift, I grab the boat.  In doing so, a thought from the back of my mind races to the front:  Wouldn’t wearing a thick pair of gloves be a sane idea to fend off all but the most powerful jaws and stingers?  Too late, my mind wigs out and as if I’m the incredible hulk, I flip the metal boat as if it’s made out of straw.  I then run away like a person who’s seen a ghost.   After calming down from a severe case of the DTs, I get the boat into the water and successfully make a final nostalgic trip over to its new owner.  

Final Note:  I still have my fishing gear so that afternoon I decide to do some fishing from my dock.  I pick up my favorite rod and lure…a rod and lure that has not caught a fish in over a year.   Not sure where my head was, maybe still feeling the effects from the adrenalin rush, but I launched my lure high into a neighbor’s tree that hangs over the water.  I shake my head in frustration, as even a fire truck would have trouble reaching it.  I do my best to try to coax the lure out of the tree, but in short order my line breaks free with no lure attached.  I figure enough is enough, and call it quits.  The next morning I decide I can’t end my fishing career on this lake in humiliating defeat.  I grab my second favorite lure, attach it to my line, securing it  with a number of granny knots.  Two casts and the lure is stuck on the bottom of the lake’s rocky floor.  I can feel my sensibility exit my body like water racing over Niagara Falls.  I yank on the line and it breaks free, minus the lure.  I now know how Tiger Woods feels as I grab my pole like a javelin and launch it into the woods.

It’s clear, The Fish Gods have Spoken – It’s Time to Go! 

“There’s a Big Difference between Fishing and Catching Fish.”  ~ Tom Brokaw

Welcome to Summer

So I drove solo up to our lake house with a mission to open the house for the summer season.  There is a ton of distasteful cleaning that needs to be done.  First order of business, I need to do battle with an army of prehistoric size crickets.  Like the Incredible Hulk, they are scary fast and seem to be able to jump or fly over twenty feet at a clip.  They show absolutely no fear and there’s no guarantee I will prevail.  Yard cleanup is also on the docket.  Every year I forget the rhyme that helps me identify which plants are poison ivy.  Something along the lines of “Leaves of three will make you p…”  In any case I usually wind up scrubbing and then caking myself in itch relieving medicine for three weeks.  I love summer.

This year will be particularly fun as we’ve decided it’s finally time to burn old sensitive paperwork that I’ve been collecting from back in the stone age.  I’ll also be mustering the strength to go to the dump and part with 20 years of very special crap.  As I think about this, both my father and grandfather are rolling over as a lot of said crap was theirs.  I’m picturing them in stereo saying, “Steve, don’t do it!  You never know when that garbage will come in handy.”  It’s an inescapable sickness passed down through generations.

At the end of the first day I walk over to my neighbor for our traditional adult beverage that kicks off the summer.  I come armed with three Foster’s Oil Cans, one as a backup in case a third person shows up.  Slight change of plans this year, my neighbor is sitting with his wife, and they’re already drinking long island ice teas.  Waste not, want not – I finish all three oil cans in what feels like a race.  After catching up, no pun intended, I say my good byes and head back to my house in a semi-panic to begin the evening’s festivities…the burning of the ancient tax returns.  But as I’m preparing for the tax return incineration, yet another brilliant idea comes to mind: I’ll weed whack the backyard, in the dark.  I’m living proof that miracles still do happen.  When I awoke the next morning I still had two intact eyeballs, and ten toes.

Distractions fought off, now it’s time for the burning of the tax returns, bank statements, and various civil war era bills that I’ve been maniacally holding onto.

Long story kind of short – you can’t just drop a bundle of paper or checks into a campfire and expect it to explode into a glorious fuel cell that lights up the neighborhood.  They clump together and actually put the fire out.  Sooo, I needed to “tend” the fire constantly, stirring it up with what started out as a long tree branch, and ended up being a spatula.  (I wake up the next morning and no longer have hair on my hands or forearms.)

Final bit of irony – that next morning after checking all of my body parts, it’s time to prepare for “Bulk Garbage Day.”  Among other things, I’ll be ridding the house of a massive dog bed that I’m actually questioning why we’re trashing.  Then my wife enlightens me that the dog bed has become an Air B&B for mice.  So I’m very excited about the opportunity to dig my hands into that one.  But there is one other item that I’ve had my sights on for years, a large hard plastic adirondack chair.  It has a sadistic hairline crack in one of the seat panels.  When you sit on it the crack opens, but when you try to stand up and escape, the crack closes and pinches your butt with the force of a master carpenter’s vice grip.  The challenge with this item is its shape and size.  It eats up too much valuable cargo space in the back of the SUV.   If I’m going to be able to fit Mickey’s mouse motel, some demolition will need to be performed.  Luckily for me, I have a massive sledgehammer that during previous engagements has almost taken my head off.  I take one swing and as if possessing the might of Thor’s Hammer, the awkward chair problem is solved.  New Problem: As much as I amazed myself by wearing safety glasses, unfortunately I was not wearing a suit of armor.  When I hit the chair, the plastic blew apart into a ga-zillion extremely sharp ninja-star projectiles, all traveling at mach7.  One of these projectiles hit me in the neck, just outside my jugular.  You may ask how I knew it was the jugular?  The cut across my throat and neck was proof positive.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about daily gratitude.  I had become concerned that I’d run out of things to be grateful for.  Now I get the feeling that some greater power will soon be sending me a message, “Don’t push your luck pal.”

The Price of Freedom

So I recently got a call from an old friend who happens to be a lifelong New York Mets fan.  I like the Mets too, but I’m one or those unicorns that also like the Yankees.  Generally speaking you’re either one of the other and the vast majority of Mets fans have contempt for the Yankees and vice-a-versa.  Personally, I could never understand why you wouldn’t want to double your chances of winning.   My friend thinks he can get tickets for the game that night.  He wants to know if I’m in.  It’s a beautiful day and like most, I whine internally that I’ve been caged for months like a wild covid animal, (poor me, right?) I “need” this.  To further justify my decision, I rationalize that both of us have just received our 2nd vaccination, we have no problem wearing masks, we’ll social distance and act responsibly.   I respond in the affirmative and begin dreaming of my escape from captivity.  I’ll be driving as my friend is on the way to Shea Stadium (I refuse to call it Citi Field).  We have dueling GPS systems and wind up driving through the Lincoln Tunnel crossing Manhattan at rush hour.  There’s a bit of angst, but it could have been a lot worse, we’re staying positive.  We arrive at the stadium and they have invoked a 25% max seating capacity at the stadium due to covid.  Basically we can park anywhere we want.  (Final attendance at the game was about 27 people) I was so giddy over our good fortune, I contemplated doing figure 8s in the parking lot.  We park the car, and during the short walk to the stadium entrance, we’re on a natural high as we soak up the beautiful weather and take in the exciting vibe of being at a stadium.  We’re thankful for the simple FREEDOM of just being able to get out, and do something non-virtual. 

Dark Clouds Approach – We get on a very short line that leads to people taking your temperature and checking your covid vaccination card.  As it turns out my friend and I are a couple of days away from the 14 day time span they require from your second vaccination.  They won’t let us in.  (Sadly I died, But I Lived! ~ Ice Age 3) We were instructed, if we still want to get into the stadium, we could walk over to a group of tents, pay $29.95 and get a rapid test, which is what we did.  Nice people in the tents, but it did seem like this was their first rodeo.  We needed to fill out an extensive form on our iPhones, without the use of reading glasses.  (I’m not sure, but it could be I signed away my liver – joke’s on them.)  We both finish our forms click submit and both are rejected.  It seems we missed the “scheduled” time slot for our test by 2 minutes, being that we spent 20 minutes getting help on the forms.  So we fill the forms out AGAIN.  Very nice girl tells us that this time it should go a lot quicker being that we all learned something.  I’m less than thrilled.

We now get our tests.  As I see the 18 inch Q-tip coming at me I close my eyes over concern that I’ll actually witness the depth of insertion and lose the use of my legs.  At one point I was pretty sure I felt the Q-tip scratching the top of my skull.

Test is done, now we wait 30 minutes for the results.  They cut us a break; it only took 29 minutes to get our negative results.  We emerge from the depths of the unwashed, walk back to the two knobs that rejected us and show them our clean bill of health.  We’re admitted to the front gate and anticipate our grand entry into the stadium.  I can almost hear the trumpets announcing us.  My friend shows the security gate people two pieces of printer paper that have a bar code on them.  The security people tell us, “We can’t accept these any more, go away.”  At this point I figured I’m being punked.  I’m expecting the crew from Candid Camera to coming walking out and we’ll all have a great laugh.  That didn’t happen.  After a commensurate amount of jawing, where we drove home the point that they wouldn’t be treating us this way if the Yankees were playing in the Bronx tonight, we were told to go to Window Three and see if someone can help.  

Big surprise, Window Three is closed.  Now I’m feeling like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where he’s left in the middle of a massive remote rental parking lot and there’s no car to be had.   In desperation we hijack another window that was closed but the guy behind the window forgot to turn off his light.  I caught his eye and wouldn’t let him go.  We ask the guy if these tickets come with free beer, which was a negative, but we did get our tickets to enter the stadium.

Long story short, after being summarily thrown out of the Metro Grill two seconds after we entered, the Game was fun.  It felt great to be in a stadium and pay $30 for a pair of beers.  We sat wherever we wanted, I could have eaten peanuts off the top of Lindor’s head.  And bonus - it wasn’t until the next day that I paid for my horrendously bad eating exhibition.

The Trip Home – We leave the parking lot as if we were the only people in the stadium, which wasn’t far from the truth.  We go over a bridge or two and our plan is to go over the George Washington Bridge to get back to Jersey.  We’re on the Cross Bronx Expressway when it comes to a complete stop.  Not crawling (that’ll come later), a complete stop.  Not what I need at 11PM on a school night.  After about 25 minutes, traffic begins to crawl and as we eventually approach the GW, I notice no cars are coming in the opposite direction.  (I’m wondering if I drove into a time warp and Chris Christie is still in office.)  By the time we got to the Jersey border, the police were letting the traffic go in the NYC bound direction.  It was like the mad rush when the whistle blows during the Polar Bear Plunge.

It’s now approaching midnight and I drop my friend off and head for home.  I’m on Route 24 going about 65 mph when I see a large deer (maybe a jersey moose) in the middle of the highway.  She’s to the left of me.  I slow down as much as I can and as the saying goes, the deer freezes in the headlights.  I take this to mean she’ll stand still and let me pass.  I’m very close and still cruising at a good clip when at the last second the deer decides that running into the side of my car is the best course of action.  I look in the rear view mirror and see her trotting off safely into woods.   On the other hand, I will be looking to enhance the revenue stream of our local auto body shop.

Never forget, Freedom has a Price!

BOGO, a Cautionary Tale

In my new covitine-fixed income situation I’m doing a yeoman’s job of working the weekly food sales circulars. I’ve become addicted to them (could be worse I suppose). Last week they had a brand of ice cream sandwich called “Fat Boy” on sale - BOGO! And nine to a box. They were very good and I went back twice.  No sense in taking a chance that the next shortage would be ice cream sandwiches.  And again, being that it’s BOGO, it’s almost like they’re paying me to take these exceptional ice cream sandwiches off their hands.  Bad as this sugar frenzy was, I doubled down.  After getting a tearless covid vaccine shot, I rewarded myself by purchasing a number of Ghirardelli chocolate bars.  In my defense they were BOGO too, and they were strategically placed right where I was waiting in line.  I interpreted it as sign from above.  Much like Moses’ response to Ramses question about why he’s trying to free the Hebrews in the movie, The Ten Commandments – “I Felt Compelled” to purchase an appropriate amount of chocolate products.  Or it could be that I’m weak, brow beaten by a sweet tooth and couldn’t help myself.  

Unfortunately, in my zeal to save a buck and find a reason to reward myself for doing the responsible thing, I miscalculated how my now atomic digestive track would respond to my gluttony.  After day three of this sugar fest, I can almost hear the conversations going on between my stomach and my brain.  My brain is saying, “You know you want it.”  And my stomach responds, “You’re kidding right?  You know what I’m going to do to this poor slob.”  Brain answers back, “You wouldn’t dare.”  Stomach, “Try me, you have 24 hours before I unleash a power so great, you’ll surely let my person go.”  (Again a shout out to Chuck Heston)  My brain and stomach have had this conversation a hundred times.  Mr. brain never learns his lesson and I suffer miserably.  Bad New / Good News:

In a sugar coma, I contacted my high school wrestling coach and alerted him not to count on me making 141 for this year’s Christmas tournament.

As for my vaccine, I have not grown a horn yet, but my new tail feathers are coming in nicely.  Stay Safe!

Livin in a covid world