Egg Hunt
Added 2020-09-16 19:02:47 +0000 UTCEvery day I go out and check my beet leaves for Leaf Miner eggs. They’re a row of small white lines, kind of like this IIII, laid on the underside of my beautiful green leaves. When they hatch, those little fuckers burrow into the space in between the roof and the floor of the leaf, and then continue to eat out the middle further and further away from their origin spot, filling the vacated space with their shit.
At first I thought it was some hideous, rotting fungus, but no, it’s just fat little green grubs desecrating my sacred space.
It’s really upsetting to me when I find a new burrowed spot, way more than the situation warrants. I feel it as a personal violation and I feel it as my own failure to protect my charges.
Destroying the eggs before they hatch is easy, just a light pinch and roll of my thumb and pointer finger on either side of the leaf and -bam- they’re gone without a trace, they don’t even squish or leave a goop behind. As long as you check every day, you can catch them before they have a chance to do any harm.
Of course, I haven’t gone outside since the smoke rolled in.
The first few days, I wore an old N95 mask in the house, even while I slept. Matt’s constructed some DIY air filters that look like Mad Max-meets-cardboard-forts. Cardboard Punk. When all three contraptions are running in the same room, the air feels clear enough to take off our masks. But when we each take one to our respective work areas, I put my mask back on while Matt’s makeshift machine does its best to absorb at least some of the smoke particles before I breath them in.
The air quality has bounced between Hazardous and Beyond Index the last few days, and today its dropped down to Very Unhealthy, which is a huge improvement.
I hope the Leaf Miner larva have enjoyed their free reign in my beet leaves, because it’s coming to an end very soon
(Cross-posted from another accidental essay I tapped out that was just supposed to be a photo caption on Instagram.)
