Songwriters: Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Phil
Selway, Thom Yorke
Original Release: OK Computer
Year: 1997
Definitive Version: None
The No. 666 song should be
Sympathy for the Devil or at least something by Ozzy, shouldn’t it? Oh well,
today’s story is about tent worm, and that can be bedeviling. Best I can do.
My dad is a handyman
extraordinaire, and after I bought my house in 1997, I found that I, too, have
the handyman gene, or at least I found that I had a reason to tap it. It’s a
small thing, but it was very satisfying to identify a problem and enact a
solution without calling in a professional.
Smack in the middle of the
front yard was a Locust tree that had been around since the house was built six
years earlier. It wasn’t quite as tall as the house, and its leaves appeared to
curl up a bit here and there. In other words, it looked like it wasn’t doing as
well as it should.
Debbie and I had quickly
established a rapport with a nursery near to where Debbie’s mom lived, and
every time Debbie had a desire to go buy a rose bush or an azalea, I’d take a
clipping of whatever plant appeared sickly if I couldn’t figure it out on my
own. I did this with the Locust, even though I had a good idea it was tentworm
because of the spider-web like marks on the leaves.
The horticulturist confirmed
the tentworm, so I knew the solution: a particular pesticide that I had bought
for a different problem. I made up the mix, hooked up the spray bottle to the
hose and doused the tree, but it didn’t seem to work. In fact, the next summer
the Locust tree looked as bad as ever, even though I sprayed it again in the
spring.
The book said tentworm
should be sprayed either in the morning or evening when it was cooler out.
Well, evening was out because of work and weekends, and I wasn’t getting up at dawn
if I was going to bed at 1. My time to work on the yard was before I went to
work. What difference does it really make when you spray something?
It turns out it can make a
huge difference. In 1998, Debbie was out of vacation time due to job change, as
I mentioned, so I took a week off in October to watch the World Series, which I
did every year afterward when I worked at The Dispatch.
One night before the game, I
took my pesticide once more to the Locust tree, with my trusty Radiohead on the
Discman. It was a cool night as the sun was setting—supposedly perfect
conditions—and I blasted the tree good. After a moment, I saw a telltale that I
hadn’t noticed before: Hanging from a silken thread was a tiny worm in death
throes. HA HA!! DIE, YOU VERMIN!! I gave it an extra spritz and then went
inside to watch the Yankees similarly eradicate the Padres.
That treatment worked. The next year
the Locust tree grew 10 feet. Even better, the leaves appeared perfectly healthy and full. I kept
looking for further signs of tentworms but saw none. The problem was eliminated, and in
the fall, I saw something not spotted before on the tree: a seedpod near the top. My tree now was healthy enough to reproduce. YAY!
The next year, the tree
produced a half-dozen more seedpods as the growth continued. It now was way taller
than the house and going strong. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve seen
the tree, but I’d be shocked if it weren’t one of the tallest in the
subdivision. Locusts, of course, can get pretty tall.
So, you know how they say to
follow instructions completely for best results? They’re not saying it just for
your amusement.
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