Digital Analogue

Bagworms!

So there I was, standing on my window ledge and cleaning the frame, when one of my neighbours asks if I've noticed my tree out front. Was there something that had happened in the last couple hours? No... I had bagworms.

I know for sure that you've seen them before, possibly without registering what they were. I know I thought they were basically some funny kind of spiderweb (hence something I'd leave in place, because spiders are good). But no, in fact, a bagworm case is actually more of a funny cocoon, in which bagworm moth larvae—caterpillars—grow up, chew up leaves, and eventually kill the tree and infest the neighbourhood. Oops!

So I had to immediately divert my plans and remove them. This involved a bit of highwire acrobatics, because one of the cases was right up in the middle of the tree; and what you're supposed to do is remove the entire branch they're on, avoid touching any other branches, stick them in a heavy plastic bag, douse with ammonia, and then send them to the landfill.

That done, I went back to the window, and was trying to figure out how many more hours of daylight I had, when I managed to crack the edge of the sash: not a structural part, but one side of the channel the rope/chain goes through. It'd probably be fine if I just left it, but y'know, I had the window sash completely off, no better time to just glue and clamp the sucker.

So the priming has been postponed to tomorrow. The next round will definitely go faster, or at least, it had better. :)

"I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking, which is, if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it." --Tayor Mali

Posted by blahedo at 9:20pm on 3 Aug 2007