Pine Pollen

[ENCORE50A]

Its literally tearing us up. Driving down a blacktop road and the pollen flies up behind you like you were on a dry gravel road.
You can't do anything outside without a mask. EVERYTHING is totally covered in pollen and the porches and sidewalks have to be sprayed off.
Seems worse this year????

The spot on the blacktop is where a robin landed and took off. Oh, it rained earlier in the day............



So I decided to take some water out and pour it on the driveway........... It started to sprinkle......




Then we got a little rain shower...........

View attachment IMG_1588.MOV

 

[MrTom]

Log off those pines and plant some birch.

 

[ENCORE50A]

Log off those pines and plant some birch.

Everything here is mostly red oak and maple. Birch trees have some kind of bug and have all died.
The pine we do have is minimal, but insane with pollen. The wife and I went over to Mio yesterday and there were places where the pollen was so thick in the air, you couldn't see a mile.
My grass needs mowing, but not until after a hard rain.

 

[illinoishunter]

It get's a little hazy sometimes by me from the pine pollen but I haven't ever seen it that bad. Even in the north woods where it's primarily pine.

 

[earlwb]

We wind up with tons of pollen from the trees etc here in Texas too. It turns my white car yellow. Ragweed tends to get everyone to have allergies too. Our local news reports on the pollen and fungus levels more than news about smog levels.

 

[ENCORE50A]

This morning after a rain..............

 

[retrieverman]

Y’all are late to the party up there, because that was east TX 3 months ago.

 

[ENCORE50A]

AND................. the fish flies (Mayflies) are out in FORCE.

 

[earlwb]

Plus here in Texas in late summer, early fall we have “ the season of crickets” where we gets countless hordes of crickets piling up everywhere. It wouldn’t be so bad but they get inside the office buildings and homes and drive you crazy with their amazingly loud mating calls. It only takes one to keep you up all night too. A warm winter is usually a good indicator that there will be a humongous number of crickets too.

Right now in west Texas is the annual migration of tarantulas going on. They even stop traffic sometimes to let the hordes of critters cross the roads too. It is dangerous to drive over lots of them as it is like trying to drive on ice too.

https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/texas-tarantula-spiders-mating-19500540.php

 

[ENCORE50A]

Plus here in Texas in late summer, early fall we have “ the season of crickets” where we gets countless hordes of crickets piling up everywhere. It wouldn’t be so bad but they get inside the office buildings and homes and drive you crazy with their amazingly loud mating calls. It only takes one to keep you up all night too. A warm winter is usually a good indicator that there will be a humongous number of crickets too.

Right now in west Texas is the annual migration of tarantulas going on. They even stop traffic sometimes to let the hordes of critters cross the roads too. It is dangerous to drive over lots of them as it is like trying to drive on ice too.

https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/texas-tarantula-spiders-mating-19500540.php

Like mayflies......... Lots of accidents because of so many on the road.

 

[MrTom]

Lovely, aren't they. We left to go fishing on the Mississippi one morning quite early. When we got near the river landing we met a road grader plowing the bugs off the road. The dead bugs made a carpet on the water about two inches thick. We didn't bother launching. We got a report from a CO that was at a gas station near there that the bug invasion went twenty miles upstream and that much downstream.

Lake Milacs [sp.?] is yet another water that is known for it's historic bug hatches where they can die in piles up to a foot deep and require graders to clear the roadways off.

 

[Wilyote1]

We get gypsy moth poop on the road so thick at times it gets slippery

 

[illinoishunter]

 

[earlwb]

I bet he would be really dancing up a storm if that was a few thousand tarantulas walking around.

 

[ENCORE50A]

Took the hose and a broom brush to the shoot'n bench this morning. I could have used a power scrubber if I had one.
Supposed to be windy all day, so maybe it'll knock the remaining down?
Hard to breathe in that crap.

 

[RobRed]

We are having a bad year for gypsy moths. I've already taken down two very mature white oaks that were killed by them using a tree company at considerable cost. I hope I don't have more dead oaks in my near future.

 

[ENCORE50A]

We are having a bad year for gypsy moths. I've already taken down two very mature white oaks that were killed by them using a tree company at considerable cost. I hope I don't have more dead oaks in my near future.

Our property is full of oak and it'll be full of Gypsy moths soon. We've never lost a tree from the moths. The'll eat it barren, but they'll come back the next year.
What will kill all the oaks, is oak wilt.
Its one thing right after the other seems like. Dutch Elm, Oak Wilt, Emerald Ash Borer, etc. Now something's killing all the birch.