I heard it announced on the radio this morning. Tent Caterpillars are in season. They seem to come in waves. The radio claims every five to six years, but personally, I've never seen them since I was a young kid and back then, they were extremely bad.
Clumps of them were attached to the trees and it was scary to be near them, for no other reason than if they fell on you, they were really f*cking gross. Like Fear Factor gross. Of course, as young kids often do, killing them became somewhat of a sport, each child attempting to make a bigger mess by killing them. Myself and a couple of friends learned a way to really gross out the girls in our class, by stepping on one half of them, forcing their innards to explode out the other end. It was quite inhumane, by today's standards.., by any day's standards, actually. However, they are a pest that kill trees by the acre, and apparently they get really really bad every five or six years.
According to the radio personality on the radio this morning, he'd spent the weekend out of town and the Tent Caterpillars were quite bad. "You haven't seen bad," he explained, "Until you see about a thousand of them crawling up the side of a house."
"You p*ssy!" I thought, recalling how bad I'd seen them when I was a kid. While a thousand on the side of a house might appear quite bad, that's a drop in a bucket compared to the shit I saw...
Clumps of them were attached to the trees and it was scary to be near them, for no other reason than if they fell on you, they were really f*cking gross. Like Fear Factor gross. Of course, as young kids often do, killing them became somewhat of a sport, each child attempting to make a bigger mess by killing them. Myself and a couple of friends learned a way to really gross out the girls in our class, by stepping on one half of them, forcing their innards to explode out the other end. It was quite inhumane, by today's standards.., by any day's standards, actually. However, they are a pest that kill trees by the acre, and apparently they get really really bad every five or six years.
According to the radio personality on the radio this morning, he'd spent the weekend out of town and the Tent Caterpillars were quite bad. "You haven't seen bad," he explained, "Until you see about a thousand of them crawling up the side of a house."
"You p*ssy!" I thought, recalling how bad I'd seen them when I was a kid. While a thousand on the side of a house might appear quite bad, that's a drop in a bucket compared to the shit I saw...
It was this time of year, about a month before school let out for the summer. As I said, the Tent Caterpillars were bad. We had a couple clumps of trees in our school yard and the caterpillars were merciless, chewing away every leaf within eye shot. Somehow, many of them had made the long trek from the far end of the school yard to the school, itself, and began the arduous trek up the side of the building, to form it's cocoon, I'm assuming. It was here where our paths would intertwine and what caterpillars survived being eaten by predators soaring above the playground, we students would terrorize and kill in the most grotesque of manners. However, the caterpillars would get their revenge on us..., and how!!
Every year kids from the schools were sent home with permission slips to be signed by mom or dad, which would allow us to venture north of the city to learn about Batoche, Fort Carlton and the whole Louis Riel Rebellion bullshit. It's something that's probably quite interesting, not for a kid barely over the age of ten. I'd kind of like to take in the experience, now that I'm old enough to appreciate it, but I'm a little hesitant as my opinions on the matter differ greatly from the majority. Politics, aside, we children climbed aboard a swanky tour bus, similar to a Greyhound and ventured toward Fort Carlton, by way of Duck Lake.
As we grew closer to the site of the North-West rebellion, the number of Tent Caterpillars grew larger by epic proportions. The radio guy thought a thousand on the broadside of a building was overwhelming, but until witness a lone highway, blackened with caterpillars traversing across, moving in one motion from a sea of obliterated trees to a fresh green forest across the road, so thick that the bus that you're riding in, needs to slow it's speed, as it gently sways from side-to-side, it's wheel wells caked with the carcasses of expired worms, for us morbid children to look out the back window to see two naked grey asphalt trails slowly disappear, the blackness of millions more caterpillars replacing those freshly dead.
If we thought this sight was bad, it was going to get a f*ck of a lot worse. Fort Carlton, itself, was under siege. Not since Louis Riel and his menagerie of goons, had the fort experienced such distress. Literally, GLOBS of slithering slimy worms would collect in every nook and cranny of the fort. While presenters tried to explain the history of the fort and the Metis-uprising, no student (or teacher, for that matter) could concentrate, everyone's gaze planted on those hoards of worms. Each ball intertwined with itself wriggling and wiggling reminiscent of the orgies put on by the infamous Roman Emperor, Caligula, only these would make even the most season cocksmith blush. Every attempt to enter a building turned into a stunt similar to those performed by Indiana Jones. Run, tuck and roll, practically, to avoid being sprayed by falling balls of furry caterpillars.
It was truly disgusting and while it doesn't give me nightmares, though it really should, I am reminded that no matter how bad shit seems, it can only get worse. I don't complain about the weather, because no matter how cold it gets, it'll never equate that minus seventy-two degree Celsius storm I was in, in Manitoba. And no matter how many hundreds or thousands of Tent Caterpillars I come across this summer, it'll never be equal to those I experienced in Fort Carlton and Batoche, when I was a kid. That being said, I guess I'll be skipping that trip this year, as an adult too. I'm much more squeamish in adulthood, than I was as a kid.
Every year kids from the schools were sent home with permission slips to be signed by mom or dad, which would allow us to venture north of the city to learn about Batoche, Fort Carlton and the whole Louis Riel Rebellion bullshit. It's something that's probably quite interesting, not for a kid barely over the age of ten. I'd kind of like to take in the experience, now that I'm old enough to appreciate it, but I'm a little hesitant as my opinions on the matter differ greatly from the majority. Politics, aside, we children climbed aboard a swanky tour bus, similar to a Greyhound and ventured toward Fort Carlton, by way of Duck Lake.
As we grew closer to the site of the North-West rebellion, the number of Tent Caterpillars grew larger by epic proportions. The radio guy thought a thousand on the broadside of a building was overwhelming, but until witness a lone highway, blackened with caterpillars traversing across, moving in one motion from a sea of obliterated trees to a fresh green forest across the road, so thick that the bus that you're riding in, needs to slow it's speed, as it gently sways from side-to-side, it's wheel wells caked with the carcasses of expired worms, for us morbid children to look out the back window to see two naked grey asphalt trails slowly disappear, the blackness of millions more caterpillars replacing those freshly dead.
If we thought this sight was bad, it was going to get a f*ck of a lot worse. Fort Carlton, itself, was under siege. Not since Louis Riel and his menagerie of goons, had the fort experienced such distress. Literally, GLOBS of slithering slimy worms would collect in every nook and cranny of the fort. While presenters tried to explain the history of the fort and the Metis-uprising, no student (or teacher, for that matter) could concentrate, everyone's gaze planted on those hoards of worms. Each ball intertwined with itself wriggling and wiggling reminiscent of the orgies put on by the infamous Roman Emperor, Caligula, only these would make even the most season cocksmith blush. Every attempt to enter a building turned into a stunt similar to those performed by Indiana Jones. Run, tuck and roll, practically, to avoid being sprayed by falling balls of furry caterpillars.
It was truly disgusting and while it doesn't give me nightmares, though it really should, I am reminded that no matter how bad shit seems, it can only get worse. I don't complain about the weather, because no matter how cold it gets, it'll never equate that minus seventy-two degree Celsius storm I was in, in Manitoba. And no matter how many hundreds or thousands of Tent Caterpillars I come across this summer, it'll never be equal to those I experienced in Fort Carlton and Batoche, when I was a kid. That being said, I guess I'll be skipping that trip this year, as an adult too. I'm much more squeamish in adulthood, than I was as a kid.
Fort Carlton, SK, as it is today...
No comments:
Post a Comment