Elephant Booger
One Labor Day weekend in September, I went to visit friends. The husband had fresh mowed the lawn that morning and had tidied up the yard. I stepped out onto the patio, noticed a gray mass of webs on a tree and asked, “What is that?” He made me laugh when he responded “I worked so hard to make everything perfect and the first thing you notice is an elephant booger in my pecan tree.” Fall web worms had appeared. The webs can ugly up a tree, but rarely do any major damage, other than to the leaves within the webbing. If the web is unreachable you will have to take a “let them be” attitude. If reachable, break up the nest with a stick, or prune the branch that the nest is on and dispose of it. If you break up the nest with a stick, birds will quickly find the worms and consume them, so you need not apply a pesticide.
Adopt a Deciduous Tree or Shrub
September is the perfect time to adopt a deciduous tree or shrub, journal and illustrate the changes in the tree throughout the seasons. Soon, the fall colors will appear and leaves will begin to drop. Illustrate by drawings or paintings or use photographs. A great shrub that is abundant is the wild, purple berried, American Beauty Bush. Maple, sweet gum, hickory nut and sycamore trees produce great shows of colors. If your tree hosts an elephant booger, fall web worms, get a stick, break up the web and feed the birds.
Read: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, who must have owned an apple tree. The life cycles of a tree and a boy are paralleled and provide a vivid explanation of the cycles of living things.
Author-Illustrator, Ruby Haydock-DeLoach, will be signing books at Midlands Fall Plant and Flower Festival at the SC State Farmers Market, 3483 Charleston Hwy, West Columbia, SC, Sept. 27-29. On Sunday, October 6, join Ruby and other nature artists at Saluda Shoals Park. She will assume the identity of book character, Terri Flower, and use a storytelling format to present funny excerpts from her third children’s book, Appalachian Morning, a book of humor filled with nature inspired art and scientific facts in the environment. Children will take home a journal with a cover design by artist to illustrate and record the events of unearth October 6, 2013 and a “Growing Little Green Thumbs” activity from Jungle Taming monthly landscaping newsletter. The book by the same title is in the process of being added to the SC Farm to School Recommended Reading List and was selected by the 2013 SC Book Festival.
