This morning when I went outside to water the garden, I was surprised to find 6 people in my yard from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)! Our property sits right next to city owned forest / land. I thought they were here to check on the trees that have been losing all their leaves. One of the gentleman came up to me, and introduced himself. "Sorry m'am, we didn't mean to scare you in your backyard. We're here to check on the trees for Asian Longhorned
Japanese Beetles." Those infamous bugs have caused havoc throughout the city, and therefore they've been tasked to go around the boroughs and take samplings from trees to see if there are any signs of them so they can eradicate the problem. I asked him if that was the cause of the trees to drop the leaves but he said that many of the trees around the city are losing leaves because of the lack of rain. It's just been too dry he said. ((((sigh)))) Tell me about it!
Here I am behind the fence in the garden watering, and sneaking in some photos! :)
Check out the harnass he is wearing. I watched him throw up this rope to the tall branches!
Then he proceeds to scale the tree! Wow!
There he is high up in the tree taking some samples. It's amazing that the state / government is taking such a proactive approach to helping the trees. How awesome!
