Locusts. Grasshoppers.
Literally by the millions.
They covered every surface. Every wall.
Each step sent a cloud of them into flight.
They flew at your face & landed in your hair (shudder).
And they ate.
Their sheer destructive force was awe inspiring.
You could go to sleep with a fully leafed bush or tree outside & wake up to twigs.
When I left to go back East they had eaten my entire garden, the landscaping on the East side of the house & every flower on the place.
But we still had trees, rose bushes. artichokes & landscaping on the West side of the house.
I was gone 4 days.
Not only did they eat the trees, rosebushes, artichokes & landscaping but they ate our lawn.
It is just a dried out, shriveled brown mess. :P
Now that the food sources have declined by such a large percentage they have started to move on to the neighbors.
Now we only have 1000's instead of millions.
Everything outside is a dried out, yellow skeleton of what it should be.
Keep in mind, when you look at these pictures, 2 months ago all of these were lush, green, fully leafed, blooming pretty plants.
Not anymore.
Used to be a nectarine tree.
Used to be a mandarin tree.
Was my herb garden.
Remember the artichokes as tall as my girl? Mmmm hmmm. That's it.
Used to be a lush grape vine full of fruit.
Was my lawn. :P
Were pretty rosebushes.
Used to be Day Lillys ~ just starting to flower when the hoppers came.
(See the sad dead munched on trees in the background?)
Trees.
One of the 20 tomato plants we put in ~ the hoppers sure appreciated that :(
More sad little trees.
So there you have the world's saddest Farm Tour of dead pathetic sticks, twigs, & straw.
And, in case you 're wondering, NO, I'm not spending a whole lot of time outside this year.
:(
Blessings.
