QQ

I will not cry. I absolutely refuse to be reduced to tears by a stupid insect.

But, over the MILLIONS that are raping and pillaging my orchard right now, I might just have a breakdown.

Do you see this? THIS is what has been happening in our orchard. When we arrived, Sam and I didn't know a thing about Japanese beetles. I was worried about it (not worried enough to do some research, though. Stupid, stupid, stupid!!), but we didn't have our apple trees yet and didn't know what these disgusting little suckers could do.

Not so sure I'm happy about earning this kind of education.

When we were planting our trees, I freaked out because there were tons of grubs. Sam assured me it would be fine (that man has GOT to stop making statements just to calm me down), and we planted anyway. (Not sure what else we could have done at that point anyway.) Well, now we know that the particular grubs we have turn into these awful, horrible, no-good, very BAD beetles, that are sucking the life out of our trees.

Well, we've gotten to work. We've ordered nematodes, we're finding a supplier for milky spore, and we've had to use insecticide, which we were NOT going to do. Thankfully, we weren't going to be able to use the fruit from this year anyway, but still...IT SUCKS! Plus we have traps (which we have to change almost daily--understand, each trap is a BAG, and when we change them they are FULL of these things!!) and I have the pleasure of going down to the orchard several times a day and plucking the darn things off the plants. You should see the amount of beetles we've collected by hand. It is insane. We have a huge bucket full of soapy water and it gets a little more full of beetles everyday. I kid you not, people, it is crazy.

A word of caution: do not take beetles lightly. Just sayin'.